Individual-level models (ILMs) are models that can use the spatial-temporal nature of disease data to capture the disease dynamics. Parameter estimation is usually done via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, but correlation between model parameters negatively affects MCMC mixing. Introducing a normalization constant to alleviate the correlation results in MCMC convergence over fewer iterations, however this negatively effects computation time. It is important that model fitting is done as efficiently as possible. An upper-truncated distance kernel is introduced to quicken the computation of the likelihood, but this causes a loss in goodness-of-fit. The normalization constant and upper-truncated distance kernel are evaluated as components in various ILMs via a simulation study. The normalization constant is seen not to be worthwhile, as the effect of increased computation time is not outweighed by the reduced correlation. The upper-truncated distance kernel reduces computation time but worsens model fit as the truncation distance decreases. / Studies have been funded by OMAFRA & NSERC, with computing equipment provided by CSI.

Both microRNAs (miRNAs) and RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate post- transcriptional events, but the post-transcriptional contribution to the global mammalian transcriptomes is still not well understood. In this study we study the synergistic interaction between microRNAs that inhibit gene production, and a special RBP, HuR, that positively regulates mRNA stability. We examined their relationship in terms of spatial, conservational and expressional perspective. We show comprehensive mapping of HuR binding sites by combination of its structural and sequential preferences; and cross-platform normalization method within a process of refining miRNA and HuR binding site mapping. Finally, we observed co-evolution of miRNA and HuR binding sites by looking at their proximity and conservation levels. Collectively, our data suggest that mammalian microRNAs and HuR, with seemingly opposing regulatory effects, cooperatively regulate their mutual targets.

Both microRNAs (miRNAs) and RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate post- transcriptional events, but the post-transcriptional contribution to the global mammalian transcriptomes is still not well understood. In this study we study the synergistic interaction between microRNAs that inhibit gene production, and a special RBP, HuR, that positively regulates mRNA stability. We examined their relationship in terms of spatial, conservational and expressional perspective. We show comprehensive mapping of HuR binding sites by combination of its structural and sequential preferences; and cross-platform normalization method within a process of refining miRNA and HuR binding site mapping. Finally, we observed co-evolution of miRNA and HuR binding sites by looking at their proximity and conservation levels. Collectively, our data suggest that mammalian microRNAs and HuR, with seemingly opposing regulatory effects, cooperatively regulate their mutual targets.

With new radioactive isotope accelerators coming online in the next decade, the problem of extracting reliable nuclear structure information from reactions with unstable nuclei deserves considerable attention. A method has been proposed to determine spectroscopic factors (SFs) using the asymptotic normalization coefficient (ANC) to fix the external contribution of a nonperipheral reaction, reducing the uncertainty in the SF. The ¹⁵C[left right arrow]¹⁴C+n system was chosen as a test case for this new method. The direct neutron capture rate on ¹⁴C is important for a variety of topics of interest in astrophysics, and the ANC for ¹⁵C[left right arrow]¹⁴C+n was also used to calculate this reaction rate. The objective of the first part of this work was to find the ANC for ¹⁵C[left right arrow]¹⁴C+n. This was done in two independent experiments. First, the heavy ion neutron transfer reaction ¹³C(¹⁴C,¹⁵C)¹²C was measured at 12 MeV/nucleon. Second, the inverse kinematics reaction d(¹⁴C,p)¹⁵C was measured using the new Texas Edinburgh Catania Silicon Array (TECSA). The next phase of the experimental program was to measure a reaction with a non-negligible interior contribution, for which ¹⁴C(d,p)¹⁵C at 60 MeV deuteron energy was used. This reaction turned out to be more peripheral than anticipated, and as a result, the ANC for the ground state was extracted from this measurement as well. The final results for the three measurements are C²2s1/2 = 1.96±0.16 fm⁻¹ for the ground state and C²1d5/2 = (4.23±0.38)·10⁻³ fm⁻¹ for the first excited state. Because the 60 MeV ¹⁴C(d,p)¹⁵C reaction turned out to have a very weak dependence on the interior, the SF could not be determined for the ¹⁴C+n ground state in ¹⁵C using the new method. A lower limit of 1.05 was found for the first excited state. It is possible that other reactions might turn out to be more suitable for this method, however, the difficulty encountered at this relatively high deuteron energy highlights a substantial problem likely to be seen in other applications. Using the ANCs determined in this work, the astrophysical ¹⁴C(n,γ)¹⁵C reaction rate was calculated. The resulting value for the cross section for capture to the ground state at 23 keV was σgs(23 keV)=5.1±0.4 μb and to the first excited state was σexc(23 keV)=0.2±0.02 μb.

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the methodology at the intersection of relational and evaluative bibliometrics. Experimental investigations are presented that address the question of how we can most successfully produce estimates of the subject similarity between documents. The results from these investigations are then explored in the context of citation-based research evaluations in an effort to enhance existing citation normalization methods that are used to enable comparisons of subject-disparate documents with respect to their relative impact or perceived utility. This thesis also suggests and explores an approach for revealing the uncertainty and stability (or lack thereof) coupled with different kinds of citation indicators.This suggestion is motivated by the specific nature of the bibliographic data and the data collection process utilized in citation-based evaluation studies. The results of these investigations suggest that similarity-detection methods that take a global view of the problem of identifying similar documents are more successful in solving the problem than conventional methods that are more local in scope. These results are important for all applications that require subject similarity estimates between documents. Here these insights are specifically adopted in an effort to create a novel citation normalization approach that – compared to current best practice – is more in tune with the idea of controlling for subject matter when thematically different documents are assessed with respect to impact or perceived utility. The normalization approach is flexible with respect to the size of the normalization baseline and enables a fuzzy partition of the scientific literature. It is shown that this approach is more successful than currently applied normalization approaches in reducing the variability in the observed citation distribution that stems from the variability in the articles’ addressed subject matter. In addition, the suggested approach can enhance the interpretability of normalized citation counts. Finally, the proposed method for assessing the stability of citation indicators stresses that small alterations that could be artifacts from the data collection and preparation steps can have a significant influence on the picture that is painted by the citationindicator. Therefore, providing stability intervals around derived indicators prevents unfounded conclusions that otherwise could have unwanted policy implications. Together, the new normalization approach and the method for assessing the stability of citation indicators have the potential to enable fairer bibliometric evaluative exercises and more cautious interpretations of citation indicators.

In January 2004 two members of the Pentecostal community Knutby Filadelfia in Uppsalamunicipality, Sweden, were shot by their fellow member Sara Svensson. With a qualitative hermeneutic case study as the principal method this essay takes on the task of not only investigating if and how Stockholm Syndrome can be used as a model for interpreting and understanding the violent incident in Knutby Filadelfia, but also to see if the unique characteristic of the Knutby incident can tell us something about Stockholm Syndrome as a model for understanding violence in religious movements. The material shows Stockholm Syndrome as having been present in Knutby because of among other things, a mileu, leadership and theology that supported the normalization of abuse and the enabling and maintaining of self punishment in the community. While Stockholm Syndrome still is a controversial theory this study shows that it can be used as a powerful tool in the understanding of violence in religious contexts.

In this dissertation, the development and performance evaluation of new techniques for image registration and image geometric normalization, which are based on feature points extracted from images are investigated. A feature point extraction method based on scale-interaction of Mexican-hat wavelets is proposed. This feature point extractor can handle images of different scales by using a range of scaling factors for the Mexican-hat wavelet leading to feature points for different scaling factors. Experimental results show that the extracted feature points are invariant to image rotation and translation, and are robust to image degradations such as blurring, noise contamination, brightness change, etc. Further, the proposed feature extractor can handle images with scale change efficiently. A new algorithm is proposed for registration of geometrically distorted images, which may have partial overlap and may have undergone additional degradations. The global 2D affine transformations are considered in the registration process. Three main steps constitute the algorithm: extracting feature point using a feature point extractor based on scale-interaction of Mexican-hat wavelets, obtaining the correspondence between the feature points of the reference and the target images using Zernike moments of neighborhoods centered on the feature points, and estimating the transformation parameters between the first and the second images using an iterative weighted least squares algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm leads to excellent registration accuracy using several types of images, even in cases with partial overlap between images. Further, it is robust against many image degradations and it can handle images of different scales effectively. A new technique for image geometric normalization is proposed. The locations of a set of feature points, extracted from the image, are used to obtain the normalization parameters needed to normalize the image. The geometric distortions considered in the proposed normalization technique include translation, rotation, and scaling. Experimental results show that the proposed technique yields good normalization accuracy and it is robust to many image degradations such as image compression, brightness change, noise contamination and image cropping. A blind watermarking technique for images is proposed, as an example of the possible applications of the presented geometric normalization technique. In order to enhance robustness of the watermarking technique to geometric distortions, the normalization technique is used to normalize the image, to be watermarked, during the embedding process. In the watermark detection stage, the normalization parameters for the possibly distorted watermarked image are obtained and used to transform the watermark into its normalized form. The transformed watermark is, then, correlated with the image to indicate whether the watermark is present in the image or not. Experimental results show that the proposed watermarking technique achieves good robustness to geometric distortions that include image translation, rotation, and scaling.

Η Ιστορία του Σώματος (το οποίο αναφέρεται είτε ως φυσικό είτε ως πολιτικό) μπορούμε να πούμε ότι συνέβαλε στη συγκρότηση ενός πλήθους ζητημάτων γύρω από την ερμηνευτική των σχέσεων μεταξύ σεξουαλικότητας και εξουσίας. Ο Michel Foucault εκπροσωπεί ικανοποιητικά, θα λέγαμε, τον στοχαστή εκείνο που ερμηνεύει την εννοια του σώματος μέσα από την γενεαλογία της εξουσίας, στην Ιστορία της Σεξουαλικότητας με την περίπτωση του σεξ και στην Επιτήρηση και Τιμωρία με την περίπτωση της φυλακής και του εγκλεισμού. Η "κανονικοποίηση του σώματος" βρίσκεται στο επίκεντρο του ενδιαφέροντος του Foucault. Με τα έργα του αναδεικνύει ό,τι καθόσον η εξουσία υπάρχει παντού, επιτρέπει ταυτόχρονα και την συγκρότηση ενός σώματος το οποίο κανονικοποιείται. Η προσέγγιση της έννοιας της "κανονικοποίησης του σώματος" αναδεικνύει ένα πλήθος ζητημάτων που αφορούν την ερμηνευτική των σχέσεων μεταξύ σεξουαλικότητας και εξουσίας όπως την παραγωγή ενός σεξουαλικού υποκειμένου, τη συγκρότηση ενός κανονικού σώματος που θέτει τη διάκριση μεταξύ της έννοιας του φυσιολογικού και του παθολογικού. Σε μια τέτοια μελέτη ο Λόγος κατέχει σημαντική θέση καθώς είτε παίρνοντας τη μορφή του εκκλησιαστικού λόγου με την εξομολόγηση είτε του ιατρικού λόγου και της επιστήμης παρήγαγε διαφορετικά σεξουαλικά υποκείμενα. Η "κανονικοποίηση του σώματος" έτσι όπως παρουσιάζεται στο έργο του Foucault τελειοποιείται θα λέγαμε στα πλαίσια της βιοπολιτικής και της σύζευξης μεταξύ ατομικού και συλλογικού. Στα πλαίσια της προσέγγισης της "κανονικοποίησης του σώματος" μελετάται η προβληματοποποίηση του υποκειμένου μέσα από διαδικασίες αντικειμενοποίησης. Η προβληματοποίηση του υποκειμένου βασίζεται στην έννοια της υποκειμενικότητας και της υποκειμενοποίησης καθώς και στα όρια που συνδέουν αλλά και απομακρύνουν αυτές τις έννοιες. Από μια τέτοια μελέτη προκύπτει η σχέση μεταξύ υποκειμένου - αντικειμένου, ενεργητικού - παθητικού ως ένα αίτημα αναζήτησης της αλήθειας, ως ένα αίτημα επιμέλειας εαυτού. Η συμβολική διάσταση του σώματος προεκτείνεται, τέλος, στον Μεσαίωνα στα Δυο Σώματα του Βασιλιά. Ο Foucault, ένας στοχαστής που οραματίζεται την πραγματικότητα αλλά και ως ένας διανοούμενος που βιώνει την πραγματικότητα, καταφέρνει να μετατρέπει το λόγο σε εικόνα και την εικόνα σε λόγο σε μια φιλοσοφία ως ένα τρόπο ζωής. Ως εραστής της τέχνης του συνθέτει τα έργα του με τα χρώματα της δικής του αισθητικής και πολιτικής αντίληψης. / The History of Body (that is reported or as natural or as political) we can say that it contributed in the constitution of crowd of questions around from the hermeneutics of relations between sexuality and power. Michel Foucault represents satisfactorily we would say the thinker that interprets the significance of body in from the genealogy of power, in the History of Sexuality with the case of sex and in Discipline and Punish with the case of prison and incarceration. The "normalization of body" is found in the epicentre of his interest. With his work it elects that in as far as the power exists everywhere, it allows simultaneously also the constitution of body that normalized. The approach of significance of normalization of body elects a crowd of questions that concerning the hermeneutics of relations between sexuality and power as the production of sexual subject, the constitution of normal body that places the discrimination between the significance of physiologic and pathological. In a such study the Speech possesses important place or taking the form of ecclesiastical speech with the confession of or medical speech and science produced different sexual subjects. The "normalization of body" thus as it is presented in the work of Foucault, is perfected we would say in the frames of biopolic and coupling between individual and collective. In the frames of approach of "normalization of body" is studied the problematization of subject by processes of objectivation. The problematization of subject is based on the significance of subjectivity and subjectivation also in the limits that they connect but also they remove these significances. From a such study results the relation between subject - object, energetic - passive as a demand of search of truth, as a demand of epimeleias eautoy. The symbolic dimension of body is extended, finally, in Middle Ages in The King's Two Bodies. Foucault, one thinker that envisions the reality but also as one intellectual that experiences the reality, he accomplishes it changes the speech in image and image in speech in a philosophy as a way of life. As lover of his art it composes his work with colours of his aesthetics and political perception.

Esta dissertação discute as funções desempenhadas pelo psiquiatra no sistema penal brasileiro, que são a assistência aos transtornos mentais, a avaliação da responsabilidade sobre um ato delituoso e a elaboração de laudos para a concessão do benefício da libertação progressiva a presos comuns. São apresentados os impasses advindos do contato entre justiça e ciência, demonstrando-se como, nos dois últimos casos, o psiquiatra não lida com seu objeto habitual, o doente mental, mas com um outro diverso, o indivíduo perigoso. Para conhecer e controlar este novo objeto a psiquiatria forma, junto com o judiciário, um outro poder denominado, conforme Michel Foucault, normalizador que, sob uma ótica genealógica, transcende o seu objeto original, transformando-se em meio de controle de todo o corpo social. Tendo por principal referencial teórico a obra daquele pensador francês, notadamente os textos vindos à luz nos últimos anos, com a publicação da transcrição de cursos e de outros artigos dispersos, este mecanismo de controle social é analisado, discutindo-se as transformações por que vem passando nas últimas décadas. Paralelamente, é defendida a extinção da necessidade do referendo psiquiátrico à progressão do regime prisional, como forma de corrigir um sistema que não funciona satisfatoriamente. / This dissertation outlines the functions performed by psychiatrists in Brazilian penal system. These are the assistance to mentally ill prisoners, the assessment of the responsibility over a criminal conduct and the performance of exams that allow common prisoners to benefit from progressive freedom or parole, accordingly to Brazilian Law. The dilemmas posed by the contact between justice and science are presented and is demonstrated how, in the two latter instances, the psychiatrist abandons his usual subject, the mental patient, and deals with a diverse one, the dangerous individual. To know and act upon this new subject, psychiatry sets up along with the judiciary a specific kind of power named, after Michel Foucault, normalization which, under a genealogical view, transcends its subject, becoming a means of controlling society as a whole. Having as main theoretical reference the works of the French thinker, notably the texts that came to light in the last few years, with the publishing of courses and many dispersed papers, this means of control over society is analyzed, being discussed how it has been transforming itself during the last decades. In addition, this work defends the extinction of the psychiatric exams to the progression of prison regime, aiming at the correction of system which has not been working appropriately since its introduction.