Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:42:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MarcosPSG_DISSERT.pdf: 1772497 bytes, checksum: df93ce17acaae55571d307fc84ed5f3e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-20 / Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte / A partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) is a copolymer composed of acrylamide and sodium acrylate. Due to its wide range of applications there are different methods for its quantification and characterization in solution systems. Evaluation of C* is important to describe the transition from dilute to semi-dilute, behavior, when the solution will have its characteristic viscosity at concentrations above C*. This dissertation describes the determination of the critical concentration of overlap C* by potentiometry of partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide - HPAM under acidic conditions. Based on the law of mass action and the proper treatment of the constant of aggregate formation, polymer molecular weight, degree of polymerization and hydrolysis were calculated. The inflection point was determined by the intersection of the resulting equation and mathematical development, statistically satisfy the experimental points relating the number of moles of monomers (n), equilibrium constant of formation of the entanglements (K*), pH, C* and acidity constant of the polymer (Ka). The viscometric parameters of C* showed a percentage difference compared to potentiometers. The results for the determination of C*, and degree of copolymerization molar mass proved to be a simple alternative for the characterization of polymers with protonated monomers and water soluble / A poliacrilamida parcialmente hidrolisada (HPAM) ? um copol?mero formado por acrilamida e acrilato de s?dio. Em fun??o de sua ampla faixa de aplica??o existem diferentes m?todos para a sua quantifica??o e caracteriza??o em solu??o. A avalia??o de C* ? importante para descrever a transi??o do regime dilu?do para o semi dilu?do, isto ?, quando a solu??o ter? sua viscosidade caracter?stica, em concentra??es acima de C*. Este trabalho descreve a determina??o da concentra??o cr?tica de overlap C* por potenciometria da poliacrilamida parcialmente hidrolisada HPAM em meio ?cido. Baseando-se na lei de a??o das massas e no tratamento adequado da constante de forma??o do agregado polim?rico foram calculados a massa molar, grau de hidr?lise e de polimeriza??o da HPAM empregada. O ponto de inflex?o foi determinado pelo m?todo da interse??o e a equa??o resultante do desenvolvimento matem?tico, satisfez estatisticamente os pontos experimentais, relacionando o n?mero de mols de mon?meros (n), constante de equil?brio de forma??o do novelo (K*), pH do meio, C* e constante de acidez do pol?mero (Ka). Os par?metros viscosim?tricos de C* apresentaram uma diferen?a percentual em rela??o aos potenciom?tricos. Os resultados para determina??o da C*, grau de copolimeriza??o e massa molar se mostraram uma alternativa simples para caracteriza??o de pol?meros com mon?meros proton?veis e sol?veis em ?gua

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2018-07-23T18:30:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Julio Cesar Mendes de Oliveira.pdf: 1398345 bytes, checksum: ec1db982cfbc37dacc81fc94295a19b1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-23T18:30:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Julio Cesar Mendes de Oliveira.pdf: 1398345 bytes, checksum: ec1db982cfbc37dacc81fc94295a19b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-15 / Introduction: Currently, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is considered an important cause of morbidity and mortality, and the twelfth most prevalent disease in the world, thus representing a serious public health problem. It is common for patients with COPD to have poor sleep quality. As causes of this poor quality of sleep we highlight nocturnal cough, dyspnea, use of medications such as theophylline and recurrent hypoxemia. The term overlap syndrome is used when we have COPD associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Overlap syndrome, with a prevalence of 9.5-28%, results in marked hypoxemia during sleep with a greater tendency to hypercapnia, pulmonary hypertension and cor pulmonale, giving these patients a worse prognosis. Objectives: To verify the prevalence of overlap syndrome and to analyze the physiological sleep variables and the quality of life of patients with COPD undergoing a home pulmonary rehabilitation program (PRPD). The study will be conducted in a private clinic, located in the city of Cascavel in the interior of the state of Paraná (PR). Patients will be submitted to clinical evaluation, pulmonary function tests (plethysmography), polysomnography and will respond to quality of life questionnaires, excessive daytime sleepiness and risk for OSA before and after participation in PRPD. Results: The main cause related to the development of COPD was current or previous smoking (83.3% of cases). The most frequent symptom reported was dyspnea (88.8%), followed by productive cough (66.6%) and bronchial secretion (40.0%). By evaluating the clinical history of the cases, a significant number of comorbidities were identified, in addition to COPD, and cardiovascular and neurological diseases were more prevalent. The prevalence of OSA with AHI greater than 5 events was 59.3% (70 patients) and AHI> 15 was 26.2% (31 patients). Conclusion: According to the preliminary data, it was possible to delineate the profile of COPD patients associated with a high prevalence of OSA, with characteristics of an elderly population with multiple comorbidities, suggesting a sleep quality lower than desired. / Introdução: Atualmente, a doença pulmonar obstrutiva crônica (DPOC) é considerada uma importante causa de morbidade e mortalidade, sendo a décima segunda enfermidade mais prevalente no mundo, representando assim um sério problema de saúde pública. É comum pacientes com DPOC apresentarem uma má qualidade do sono. Como causas desta má qualidade do sono destacamos a tosse noturna, dispneia, uso de medicações, como a teofilina e hipoxemia recorrente. O termo overlap syndrome é empregado quando temos a DPOC associada a apneia obstrutiva do sono (AOS). A síndrome da overlap, com uma prevalência entre 9,5-28%, resulta em acentuada hipoxemia durante o sono com maior tendência a hipercapnia, hipertensão pulmonar e cor pulmonale, conferindo a esses pacientes um pior prognóstico. Objetivos: Verificar a prevalência da síndrome de overlap e analisar as variáveis fisiológicas do sono e a qualidade de vida de pacientes com DPOC submetidos a programa de reabilitação pulmonar domiciliar (PRPD). O estudo será realizado em uma clínica privada, localizada na Cidade de Cascavel no interior do estado do Paraná (PR). Os pacientes serão submetidos a avaliação clínica, provas de função pulmonar (pletismografia), polissonografia e responderão a questionários de qualidade de vida, sonolência excessiva diurna e risco para AOS antes e após a participação no PRPD. Resultados: A principal causa relacionada ao desenvolvimento da DPOC foi o tabagismo atual ou prévio (83,3% dos casos). O sintoma mais frequente relatado foi a dispneia (88,8%), seguida de tosse produtiva (66,6%) e secreção brônquica (40,0%). Avaliando-se o histórico clínico dos casos identificou-se, além da DPOC, um número significativo de comorbidades, sendo as cardiovasculares e neurológicas mais prevalentes. A prevalência de AOS com um IAH maior de cinco eventos foi 59,3% (70 pacientes) e IAH > 15 foi de 26,2% (31 pacientes). Conclusão: De acordo com os dados preliminares, pôde-se delinear o perfil de pacientes com DPOC associado a uma alta prevalência de AOS, com características de uma população idosa, com múltiplas comorbidades, sugerindo uma qualidade de sono inferior à desejada.

Dizertační práce se zabývá algoritmy SegDWT pro segmentový výpočet Diskrétní Waveletové Transformace – DWT jedno i vícedimenzionálních dat. Segmentovým výpočtem se rozumí způsob výpočtu waveletové analýzy a syntézy po nezávislých segmentech (blocích) s určitým překryvem tak, že nevznikají blokové artefakty. Analyzující část algoritmu pracuje na principu odstranění přesahu a produkuje vždy část waveletových koeficientů z waveletové transformace celého signálu, které mohou být následně libovolně zpracovány a podrobeny zpětné transformaci. Rekonstruované segmenty jsou pak skládány podle principu přičtení přesahu. Algoritmus SegDWT, ze kterého tato práce vychází, není v současné podobně přímo použitelný pro vícerozměrné signály. Tato práce obsahuje několik jeho modifikací a následné zobecnění pro vícerozměrné signály pomocí principu separability. Kromě toho je v práci představen algoritmus SegLWT, který myšlenku SegDWT přenáší na výpočet waveletové transformace pomocí nekauzálních struktur filtrů typu lifting.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Statistics / Gary L. Gadbury / The potential for high variability in treatment effects across individuals has been recognized as an important consideration in clinical studies. Surprisingly, little attention has been given to evaluating this variability in design of clinical trials or analyses of resulting data. High variation in a treatment’s efficacy or safety across individuals (referred to herein as treatment heterogeneity) may have important consequences because the optimal treatment choice for an individual may be different from that suggested by a study of average effects. We call this an individual qualitative interaction (IQI), borrowing terminology from earlier work - referring to a qualitative interaction (QI) being present when the optimal treatment varies across ‘groups’ of individuals. At least three techniques have been proposed to investigate treatment heterogeneity: techniques to detect a QI, use of measures such as the density overlap of two outcome variables under different treatments, and use of cross-over designs to observe ‘individual effects.’ Connections, limitations, and the required assumptions are compared among these techniques through a quantity frequently referred to as subject-treatment (S-T) interaction, but shown here to be the probability of an IQI (PIQI). Their association is studied utilizing a potential outcomes framework that can add insights to results from usual data analyses and to study design features to more directly assess treatment heterogeneity. Particular attention is given to the density overlap of two outcome variables, each representing an individual’s ‘potential’ response under a different treatment. Connections are made between the overlap quantified as the proportion of similar responses (PSR) and the PIQI. Given a bivariate normal model, the maximum PIQI is shown to be an upper bound for ½ the PSR. Additionally, the characterization of a conditional PSR allows for the PIQI boundaries to be developed within subgroups defined over observable covariates so that the subset contribution to treatment heterogeneity may be identified. The possibility of similar boundaries is explored outside the normal model using the skew normal distribution. Furthermore, a bivariate PIQI is developed along with its PSR counterpart to help characterize treatment heterogeneity resulting from a bivariate response such as the efficacy and safety of a treatment.

A new dual fuel Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI) combustion concept was proposed and researched for lower exhaust emissions and better fuel economy. The concept takes the advantage of the complementary physical and chemical properties of high octane number gasoline and high cetane number Di-Methyl Ether (DME) to organize the combustion process. Homogeneous gasoline/air mixture is utilized as the main combustible charge, which is realised by a low-cost Port Fuel Injection (PFI) system. Pressurised DME is directly injected into cylinder via a commercial Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) injector. Flexible DME injection strategies are employed to realise the controlled auto ignition of the premixed charge. The engine is operated at Wide Open Throttle (WOT) in the entire operating region in order to minimize the intake pumping loss. Engine load is controlled by varing the amount of internal Exhaust Gas Recirculation (iEGR) which is achieved and adjusted by Positive Valve Overlap (PVO) and/or exhaust back pressure, and exhaust rebreathing method. The premixed mixture can be of either stoichiometric air/fuel ratio or fuel lean mixture and is heated and diluted by recycled exhaust gases. The use of internal EGR is considered as a very effective method to initiate CAI combustion due to its heating effect and moderation of the heat release rate by its dilution effect. In addition, the new combustion concept is compared to conventional SI combustion. The results indicate that the new combustion concept has potential for high efficiency, low emissions, enlargement of the engine operational region and flexible control of CAI combustion.

Les supercalculateurs utilisés dans le HPC sont constitués de plusieurs machines inter-connectées. Généralement, elles sont programmées à l'aide de MPI qui spécifie une interface de programmation échanger des messages entre les machines. Les opérations MPI non-bloquantes ont été proposées pour recouvrir les communications par du calcul afin d'en amortir le coût. Initialement, ces opérations étaient uniquement disponibles pour les opérations entre 2 processus MPI : les communications point-à-point. L'extension des communications non-bloquantes aux opérations impliquant plus de 2 processus MPI, les opérations collectives, est apparue dans la version 3.0 de la norme MPI en 2012. Cela a ouvert la possibilité de recouvrir les communications collectives non-bloquantes par du calcul. Cependant, ces opérations consomment plus de temps CPU que les opérations point-à-point. Nous proposons d'aborder ce problème sous plusieurs angles. D'une part, nous nous concentrons sur le placement des threads de progression générés par les collectives MPI non-bloquantes. Pour cela, nous proposons deux algorithmes de placement des threads de progression pour toutes les collectives MPI non-bloquantes. Le premier est de regrouper les threads de progression sur des cœurs libres. Le second est de placer les threads de progression sur les hyper-threads. Pour être plus efficace, nous nous concentrons ensuite sur l'optimisation de deux types d'algorithme utilisés pour les opérations collectives : les algorithmes en arbre et les algorithmes en chaîne. D'autre part, nous avons aussi étudié l'ordonnancement des threads de progression afin d'éviter l'exécution de threads inutiles à la progression de l'algorithme. Pour cela, nous proposons d'abord d'utiliser un mécanisme permettant de suspendre l'ordonnancement de ces threads, puis de forcer l'ordonnancement optimal des threads de progression de façon statique à l'aide de sémaphores. Enfin, une politique d'ordonnancement avec des priorités a été mise en place comme preuve de concept. / Supercomputers used in HPC are composed of severals inter-connected machines. Usually, they are programmed using MPI which specify an API for messages exchanges between machines. To amortize the cost of MPI collective operations, non-blocking collectives have been proposed so as to allow communications to be overlapped with computation. Initially, these operations were only available for communication between 2 MPI processes : point-to-point communications. Non-blocking communications were expanded to collective communications in 2012 with MPI 3.0. This opens up the possibility to overlap non-blocking collective communications with computation. However, these operations are more CPU-hungry than point-to-point communications. We propose to approach this problem from several angles. On the one hand, we focus on the placement of progress threads generated by the MPI non-blocking collectives. We propose two progress threads placements algorithms for all non-blocking collectives. We either bind them on free cores, or we bind them on the hyper-threads. Then, we focus on optimizing two types of algorithms used by collective operations: tree-based algorithms and chain-based algorithms. On the other hand, we also study the scheduling of progress threads to avoid their execution when it is unecessary to the advancement of the collective algorithm. For that, we propose first to use a mechanism to suspend the scheduling of these threads, and then we force their optimal scheduling statically by using semaphores. Finally, we introduce a proof of concept scheduling policy with priorities.

The innate immune system are a cooperation of many components – receptors being one of them. Both membrane-bound and cytosolic receptors play a large role in the defence system against pathogens and danger. NLRP3 is a receptor which assembles a protein complex called inflammasome in response to cytosolic stress and is responsible for many autoimmune diseases if it malfunctions. The activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome leads to secretion of inflammatory cytokines and in many cases to programmed cell death. The structure, function and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome is still not fully understood and the urge to understand the mechanisms behind are important for future medical improvements. The aim was to anchor the NLRP3 inflammasome by the cell membrane - By Overlap PCR, the NLRP3 cDNA was fused extracellular and trans-membrane parts of the TLR4 cDNA to anchor the NLRP3 to the membrane and in turn analyse the inflammasome with LPI™ technology. Multiple primers and a TLR4 nucleotide were designed and the NLRP3 was amplified with specific overhangs by PCR. The fusion protein was successfully linked together by Overlap PCR but not confirmed by sequencing. The gene fusion demands high quality primers for amplification and further evaluation must be made to the details of the laboratory. To anchor the protein complex to the cell membrane, continue to be of full importance and can be an asset in many structural studies and biopharmaceuticals trials.

Incorporating information from the short-time phase spectrum into a feature set for automatic speech recognition (ASR) may possibly serve to improve recognition accuracy. Currently, however, it is common practice to discard this information in favour of features that are derived purely from the short-time magnitude spectrum. There are two reasons for this: 1) the results of some well-known human listening experiments have indicated that the short-time phase spectrum conveys a negligible amount of intelligibility at the small window durations of 20-40 ms used for ASR spectral analysis, and 2) using the short-time phase spectrum directly for ASR has proven di?cult from a signal processing viewpoint, due to phase-wrapping and other problems. In this thesis, we explore the possibility of using short-time phase spectrum information for ASR by considering the two points mentioned above. To address the ?rst point, we conduct our own set of human listening experiments. Contrary to previous studies, our results indicate that the short-time phase spectrum can indeed contribute signi?cantly to speech intelligibility over small window durations of 20-40 ms. Also, the results of these listening experiments, in addition to some ASR experiments, indicate that at least part of this intelligibility may be supplementary to that provided by the short-time magnitude spectrum. To address the second point (i.e., the signal processing di?culties), it may be necessary to transform the short-time phase spectrum into a more physically meaningful representation from which useful features could possibly be extracted. Speci?cally, we investigate the frequency-derivative (or group delay function, GDF) and the time-derivative (or instantaneous frequency distribution, IFD) as potential candidates for this intermediate representation. We have performed various experiments which show that the GDF and IFD may be useful for ASR. We conduct several ASR experiments to test a feature set derived from the GDF. We ?nd that, in most cases, these features perform worse than the standard MFCC features. Therefore, we suggest that a short-time phase spectrum feature set may ultimately be derived from a concatenation of information from both the GDF and IFD representations. For best performance, the feature set may also need to be concatenated with short-time magnitude spectrum information. Further to addressing the two aforementioned points, we also discuss a number of other speech applications in which the short-time phase spectrum has proven to be very useful. We believe that an appreciation for how the short-time phase spectrum has been used for other tasks, in addition to the results of our research, will provoke fellow researchers to also investigate its potential for use in ASR.

關於描述兩個觀察地A和B相似的程度而言，生物品種是否相同是其中的一個切入點，因此品種重複（species overlap）便為描述兩觀察地相似度的一種指標。就一般的生物或生態研究而言，較常使用的品種重複指數為以品種數為計算基礎的 Jaccard index，公式為 ，其中 和 分別為觀察地A和B的總品種數，而 則為兩地的共同品種數，這樣的計算方式為Gower(1985) 歸類描述兩單位（unit）的相似度（similarity）中的一種。在我們的研究中，將令依觀察到的品種數及品種重複數所計算出的 Jaccard index 視為估計值，記為 ；若描述相似度時僅以品種為計算單位，而忽略個別品種的數量未免有資訊流失的情形，因此我們延伸 Jaccard index 指數而另立以個別品種數為計算單位的 N 指數，並以無母數最大概似估計法（Nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Estimator, NPMLE）估計 N 指數，記為 。另外，Smith, Solow 和 Preston (1996) 也提出利用 delta-beta-binomial 模型修正 Jaccard index 的低估（underestimate）情形，我們將此模型所推估的品種重複記為 ，因此我們的研究重點便在於以模擬實驗比較 、 和 在估計真正參數時的行為。 在模擬實驗中，根據蒙地卡羅（Monte-Carlo）模擬法則，我們設計6種品種發生機率相等的平衡母體，及12種品種發生機率服從幾何分配的不平衡母體，以500次抽樣所得的平均數及標準差決定估計的好壞。根據研究結果，若在已知母體為平衡母體的情形之下， 和 有不錯的估計；而 則是不管在平衡母體或不平衡母體皆有不錯的估計，但 和 在某些不平衡母體時，卻有極偏差的估計。 除了模擬實驗之外，我們並推導出 的期望值和變異數，並證明其為 N 指數的大樣本不偏估計值（asymptotic unbiased estimator），並以台灣西北部濕地的鳥類記錄為實例，計算出三個估計值，並以跋靴法（Bootstrapping）計算出三個估計量的標準差估計值，發現NPMLE 有最小的變異程度。 / In describing the similarity between communities A and B, species overlap is one kind of measure. In ecology and biology, the Jaccard index (Gower, 1985) ,denoted , for species overlap is widely used and is useded as an estimation in our research. However, the Jaccard index is simply the proportion of overlapping species, that is those species appearing in more than one community, to unique species, that is those species appearing in only one community. However, this index ignores species proportion information, assigning equal weight to all species. We propose a new index, N, which includes proportion information and is estimated by a Nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Estimator (NPMLE), denoted . Smith et al. (1996) proposed a delta-beta-binomial model to improve underestimation of the Jaccard index, we denoted this estimator . In our Monte-Carlo simulations, we design 6 balanced populations in which every species has an equal proportion and 12 unbalanced populations in which species proportions follow a geometric distribution. We found that and are accurate for balanced populations but overestimate or underestimate the true value for some unbalanced populations. However, is robust for both balanced and unbalanced populations. In addition to simulation results, we also give theoretical results, which prove some asymptotic properties of NPMLE .For example, species abundance of wild birds communications occurred at two locations in north-western Taiwan.Via bootstrapping, has smaller standard error than and .

In this thesis, a block-based motion estimation algorithm suitable for Super-Resolution (SR) image reconstruction is introduced. The motion estimation problem is formulated as an energy minimization problem that consists of both a data and regularization term. To handle cases when motion estimation fails, a block-based validity method is introduced, and is shown to outperform all other validity methods in the literature in terms of hybrid de-interlacing. By combining the validity metric into the energy minimization framework, it is shown that 1) the motion vector error is made less sensitive to block size, 2) a more uniform distribution of motion-compensated blocks results, and 3) the overall motion vector error is reduced. The final motion estimation algorithm is shown to outperform several state-of-the-art motion estimation algorithms in terms of both endpoint error and interpolation error, and is one of the fastest algorithms in the Middlebury benchmark. With the new motion estimation algorithm and validity metric, it is shown that artifacts are virtually eliminated from the POCS-based reconstruction of the high-resolution image.