Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2005. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 DissPGR.pdf: 3189913 bytes, checksum: f21c15a497113ba51e22b0e750f8a8dd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-24 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / The frailty syndrome has been described as an important geriatric syndrome by being associated with an increased risk of functional decline, falls, institutionalization, hospitalization and death. In addition, some studies have found an association with cognitive decline and low level of physical activity. The study aims were (a) to verify the influence of frailty syndrome, level of physical activity and cognition on Timed Up and Go test (TUG) and Timed Up and Go associated with dual task (TUG-DT) performances; and (b) to compare TUG and TUG-DT performances between older adults who developed frailty syndrome. Sixty-four individuals were divided into frail, pre-frail and non-frail groups. The assessment consisted of cognition (ACE-R), physical activity level (triaxial accelerometer), isolated secondary task, TUG and TUG-DT. For statistical analysis, one-way ANOVA or Chi-square tests were used to compare groups. Multiple linear regression to identify variables that could predict the time performance in TUG and TUG-DT, and, ANCOVA to compare the three groups. Regarding the characteristics of the sample, the groups presented homogeneous, except gender, which showed more women in the pre-frail group. Significant differences in daily physical activity level were found in the frail group for energy expenditure, time sitting/lying, time standing, time stepping and step count variables. There were no differences in ACE-R total score, however, there was difference between the frail group and non-frail just in attention and orientation domain. The isolated secondary task was influenced cognition during its realization, but there were no differences between groups. TUG performance was not influenced by age, physical activity level or frailty, however, frail group differed from non-frail group in time and number of steps. Regarding the performance of the elderly in TUG-DT, cognition and age influenced the time of completion and number of steps, respectively, however, no differences were found between groups. The results show that the performance of the TUG is influenced by the presence of the frailty syndrome, age and of physical activity level and the performance of the TUG-DT is influenced by age and cognition. / A síndrome da fragilidade tem sido descrita como uma importante síndrome geriátrica por estar associada ao aumento do risco de declínio funcional, quedas, institucionalização e morte. Além disso, alguns estudos têm verificado uma associação com declínio cognitivo e baixo nível de atividade física. O presente estudo teve como objetivos: (a) verificar a influência da síndrome da fragilidade, nível de atividade física e cognição no desempenho dos testes Timed Up and Go (TUG) e Timed Up and Go associado à dupla tarefa (TUG-DT) e (b) comparar o desempenho de idosos que cursam a síndrome da fragilidade em ambos os testes. Sessenta e quatro idosos foram divididos em grupos frágil, pré-frágil e não frágil. Foram avaliados: cognição (ACE-R), nível de atividade física (acelerômetro triaxial), tarefa secundária isolada, TUG e TUG-DT. Na análise estatística, utilizou-se ANOVA one way e Qui-quadrado para comparação dos grupos. Regressão linear múltipla para identificar as variáveis preditoras dos tempos de realização do TUG e TUG-DT e ANCOVA para comparar os três grupos. Com relação às características da amostra, os grupos apresentaram-se homogêneos, exceto a variável sexo, com mais mulheres no grupo pré-frágil. Diferenças significativas no nível de atividade física diário foram encontradas no grupo frágil para as variáveis gasto energético, tempo em repouso, tempo em ortostase, tempo caminhando e contagem de passos. Não foram encontradas diferenças na pontuação total do ACE-R, verificou-se diferença entre o grupo frágil e não frágil apenas no domínio atenção e orientação. A tarefa secundária isolada sofreu influência da cognição durante a sua realização, porém não houve diferenças entre os grupos. O desempenho no TUG não foi influenciado pelas covariáveis idade, nível de atividade física e fragilidade, de modo que, o grupo frágil diferiu do grupo não frágil no tempo de realização do teste e número de passos. Com relação ao desempenho dos idosos no TUG-DT, a cognição e idade influenciaram no tempo de realização e número de passos, respectivamente, porém, não foram encontradas diferenças entre os grupos. Os resultados permitem concluir que o desempenho do TUG é influenciado pela presença da síndrome da fragilidade, idade e nível de atividade física e o desempenho do TUG-DT é influenciado pela idade e cognição. / CNPq: 131468/2015-4.

A progressão da distrofia muscular de Duchenne (DMD) resulta no surgimento de múltiplas e variadas sinergias para compensar a fraqueza muscular e para lidar com as demandas de tarefas funcionais, como por exemplo, a marcha. Alguns instrumentos de avaliação funcional para pessoas com DMD permite a análise subjetiva (descrição) e objetiva (escore) sem levar em consideração os movimentos compensatórios. Por esta razão, os médicos e os fisioterapeutas enfrentam dificuldades na avaliação clínica e tomada de decisão. Este estudo teve como objetivo elaborar o domínio marcha da Escala de Avaliação Funcional para DMD / Functional Evaluation Scale (FES-DMD-D4), testar sua confiabilidade intraexaminador e interexaminadores e sua relação com a idade, escala Vignos e tempo de desempenho da marcha. Uma amostra de 120 vídeos da marcha de 30 crianças com DMD foi analisada. Os movimentos detectados foram classificados considerando suas características cinesiológicos e padrões de compensações. FES-DMD-D4 foi criada e submetida à avaliação de 10 especialistas. Após a incorporação das sugestões propostas, a escala foi utilizada no total da amostra para avaliação por três examinadores. Foi calculada a confiabilidade intraexaminador e interexaminadores utilizando ICC. As relações entre o FES-DMD-D4 e a idade, a escala Vignos e o tempo de desempenho foram testadas com teste de correlação de Spearman (p < 0,05). A FES-DMD-D4 foi composta por três fases, e 14 itens. Coeficientes de correlação intraclasse variaram de aceitável (0,79) a excelente (0,98). A pontuação total da FES-DMD-D4 correlacionou-se com a idade e o tempo de desempenho, mas não com a escala Vignos / The progression of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) results in the emergence of multiple and varied synergies to compensate muscle weakness and to deal with the demands of functional tasks, such as gait. Few functional evaluation instruments for people with DMD allows for subjective analysis (description) and objective (score) without taking into account the compensatory movements. For this reason, clinicians and physiotherapists face difficulties in clinical assessment and decision-making. This study aimed to elaborate the gait domain of the Functional Evaluation Scale for DMD, gait domain (FES-DMD-D4) and to test its reliability intraexaminer and interexaminers and its relationship with age, Vignos score and timed motor performance. A sample of 120 gait videos of 30 children with DMD was analyzed. The detected movements were classified, considering the kinesiological characteristics of the compensation movements. FES-DMD-D4 was created and submitted to the review of 10 experts. After the incorporation of the suggestions proposed by the experts, the scale was used to analyse a total sample by 3 examiners. The reliability intraexaminer and interexaminers was calculated using ICC. The relationships between FES-DMD-D4 and age, Vignos score and timed motor performance was tested with Spearman correlation test (p < 0.05). The FES-DMD-D4 was composed of 3 phases, and 14 items. Intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from acceptable (0.79) to excellent (0.98). The scores on FES-DMD-D4 correlated to age and timed motor performance, but not to Vignos score

Os objetivos deste trabalho foram desenvolver um dispositivo apontador, com as mesmas funções de um mouse, controlado pelo movimento da cabeça, e comparar a eficiência do dispositivo proposto, utilizando o controle do cursor do computador no modo absoluto e relativo (joystick), operado por dez indivíduos tetraplégicos e por dez indivíduos sem acometimento neuromuscular. A maioria dos parâmetros estudados apresentou diferença significativa, entre as situações de controle absoluto e relativo, para os indivíduos de ambos os grupos, evidenciando que os parâmetros medidos no modo absoluto foram melhores que os medidos no modo relativo. O dispositivo apontador emula adequadamente as funções de deslocamento do cursor, mostrando que o modo de controle absoluto é mais eficiente que o modo de controle relativo / The objectives of this study were to develop a head controlled pointer device with mouse functions and compare its performance when operated in absolute versus relative (joystick like) modes by ten quadriplegic subjects and ten people without neuromuscular impairment. The device was composed of a video camera, a computer program and a reflective paper target attached to a cap which was then placed on the user´s head. Most of the measured parameters revealed a significant difference between the control modes, favouring the absolute one, for both studied groups. The developed head pointer adequately emulates the computer cursor displacement, with the absolute control mode being functionally more efficient than the relative control mode in this study.

Negative-imaginary systems are broadly speaking stable and square (equal number of inputs and outputs) systems whose Nyquist plot lies underneath (never touches for strictly negative-imaginary systems) the real axis when the frequency varies in the open interval 0 to ∞. This class of systems appear quite often in engineering applications, for example, in lightly damped flexible structures with collocated position sensors and force actuators, multi-link robots, DC machines, active filters, etc. In this thesis, robustness analysis and controller synthesis methods for uncertain negative-imaginary systems are explored. Two new reformulation techniques are proposed that facilitate both the robustness analysis and controller synthesis for uncertain negative-imaginary systems. These reformulations are based on the transformation from negative-imaginary systems to a bounded-real framework via the positive-real property. In the presence of strictly negative-imaginary uncertainty, the robust stabilization problem is posed in an equivalent H∞ control framework; similarly, a negative-imaginary robust performance analysis problem is cast into an equivalent μ-framework. The latter framework also allows robust stability analysis when the perturbations are a mixture of bounded-real and negative-imaginary uncertainties. The proposed two techniques pave the way for existing H∞ control and μ theory to be applied to robustness analysis and controller synthesis for negative-imaginary systems. In addition, a static state-feedback synthesis method is proposed to achieve robust stability of a system in the presence of strictly negative-imaginary uncertainties. The method is developed in the LMI framework, which can be solved efficiently using convex optimization techniques. The controller synthesis method is based on the negative-imaginary stability theorem: a positive feedback interconnection of two negative-imaginary systems is internally stable if and only if the DC loop gain is contractive and at least one of the systems in the interconnected loop is strictly negative-imaginary. Also, in order to handle non-strict negative-imaginary uncertainties, a strongly strictly negative-imaginary lemma is proposed that helps to ensure the strictly negative-imaginary property of the nominal closed-loop system for robustness. To this end, a state-space characterization for strictly negative-imaginary property is given for non-minimal systems where the conditions are convex and hence numerically attractive. The results in this thesis hence facilitate both the robustness analysis and controller synthesis for negative-imaginary systems that quite often arise in practical scenarios. In addition, they can be applied to quantify the worse-case performance for this class of systems. Therefore, the proposed results have important implications in controller synthesis for uncertain negative-imaginary systems that achieve not only robust stabilization but also robust performance.

The aim of the thesis on the topic of High-Performance Analytics is to gain a structured overview of solutions of high performance methods for data analysis. The thesis introduction concerns with definitions of primary and secondary data analysis, and with the primary systems which are not appropriate for analytical data analysis. The usage of mobile devices, modern information technologies and other factors caused a rapid change of the character of data. The major part of this thesis is devoted particularly to the historical turn in the new approaches towards analytical data analysis, which was caused by Big Data, a very frequent term these days. Towards the end of the thesis there are discussed the system sources which greatly participate in the new approaches to the analytical data analysis as well as in the technological solutions of High Performance Analytics themselves. The second, practical part of the thesis is aimed at a comparison of the performance in conventional methods for data analysis and in one of the high performance methods of High Performance Analytics (more precisely, with In-Memory Analytics). Comparison of individual solutions is performed in identical environment of High Performance Analytics server. The methods are applied to a certain sample whose volume is increased after every round of executed measurement. The conclusion evaluates the tests results and discusses the possibility of usage of the individual High Performance Analytics methods.

Objetivo: Avaliar a responsividade da escala de avaliação funcional para pacientes com distrofia muscular de Duchenne (DMD), domínio 1 - sentar e levantar da cadeira (FES-DMD-D1). Método: Estudo observacional, retrospectivo e longitudinal (seguimento por um ano). Foi estudada, utilizando o software FES-DMD-DATA, uma amostra de 150 avaliações da atividade de sentar e levantar da cadeira, a partir de um banco de imagens com filmes de 30 crianças com DMD, executando atividades funcionais, avaliadas a cada três meses, em um período de um ano. A avaliação da FES-DMD-D1 foi aplicada por fisioterapeuta treinado, considerando os escores das fases de flexão, de contato e de extensão da atividade de sentar na cadeira e, das fases de flexão, de transferência e de extensão da atividade de levantar da cadeira. Para avaliar a responsividade da FES-DMD-D1 foram analisadas as avaliações dos períodos de seguimento de três, seis, nove e doze meses, por meio do tamanho do efeito (TE) e da média de resposta padronizada (MRP). Resultados: A responsividade da atividade de sentar na cadeira foi considerada de pequena a moderada nas avaliações a cada três meses (TE de 0,22 a 0,49 e MRP de 0,32 a 0,54), de pequena a moderada a cada seis meses (TE de 0,50 a 0,61 e MRP de 0,41 a 0,61), de pequena a grande a cada nove meses (TE de 0,69 a 1,11 e MRP de 0,49 a 0,79) e grande no período de um ano (TE de 1,07 e MRP de 0,80). Na atividade de levantar da cadeira, a responsividade foi pequena a cada três meses (TE de 0,21 a 0,35 e MRP de 0,28 a 0,45), de pequena a grande a cada seis meses (TE de 0,45 a 0,62 e MRP de 0,50 a 0,96), de moderada a grande a cada nove meses (TE de 0,76 a 0,89 e MRP de 0,74 a 1,47) e grande em um ano (TE de 1,28 e MRP de 1,24). Conclusão: A FES-DMD-D1 mostrou responsividade de moderada a grande, aumentando gradativamente nos intervalos de seis, nove e doze meses. Dessa forma, é indicado o uso da FES-DMD-D1 a partir de seis meses / Objective: To evaluate the responsiveness of the functional evaluation scale for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) - domain 1: sitting and standing from the chair (FES-DMD-D1). Method: Observational, retrospective and longitudinal study with one year follow-up. A sample of 150 evaluations of sitting and rising from the chair was studied, using the FES-DMD-DATA software, from a bank of images of 30 children with DMD performing functional activities, evaluated every three months in a period of one year. FES-DMD-D1, which explores the scores of the phases of flexion, contact, extension of the activity of sitting on the chair, and of the phases of flexion, transference, extension of the activity of rising from the chair was applied by a trained physiotherapist. To evaluate the responsiveness of FES-DMD-D1 we considered the follow-up evaluations after three, six, nine and twelve months. The analysis used the effect size (ES) and standardized response mean (SRM). Results: The responsiveness of sitting on the chair was considered low to moderate in evaluations with three months intervals (ES from 0.22 to 0.49 and SRM from 0.32 to 0.54), low to moderate with six months intervals (ES from 0.50 to 0.61 and SRM from 0.41 to 0.61), low to high in nine months intervals (ES from 0.69 to 1.11 and SRM from 0.49 to 0.79) and high in the reassessment after one year (ES from 1.07 and SRM from 0.80). The responsiveness of the rising from the chair was low in three months (ES from 0.21 to 0.35 and SRM from 0.28 to 0.45), from low to high in six months (ES from 0.45 to 0.62 and SRM from 0.50 to 0.96), moderate to high in nine months (ES from 0.76 to 0.89 and SRM from 0.74 to 1.47) and high in a year (ES from 1.28 and SRM from 1.24). Conclusion: FES-DMD-D1 showed moderate to high responsiveness, gradually increasing for intervals of six, nine and twelve months. Thus, the use of FES-DMD-D1 is indicated from six months

The Master’s thesis deals with the financial performance ratings of the selected travel agency during the years 2012 – 2016 with using benchmarking and financial analysis. The first part of thesis focuses on description of basic terms and methodological procedures, which are used for company performance evaluation. In the second part of thesis, these findings are practically applied and are made analysis of the current situation of the company and its closest competitions. Based on information from the analysis are presented the proposals, which improve a financial position company.

The master’s thesis deals with evalutation of financial performance of company through benchmarking. A firm AQUA PROCON, Ltd. operates in field of designing and engineering activities with a focus on water management constructions. Business in this thesis is analised from two points of view. The first one is comparison with a specific field according to CZ-NACE M-7112 – Engineering and another technical consulting. The second one is company‘s performance compared to chosen competitors. The aim of analising both views is to find weak spots and suggest solutions, which will lead to improvement of performance and stability of the company on the market.

Primary focus of this thesis is Financial Health Evaluation of “Auto Slavíček s.r.o.“ company. The study has been conducted between 2014 and 2018. Evaluation will begin with Analysis of Business Environment, followed by Financial Analysis. These analyses will serve as foundation for development of set of measures intended to mitigate, decrease or resolve identified issues, and improve the overall Financial Health of the set company. The thesis will conclude with the summary focusing on practical aspect of this work: development and implementation of analysis and recommended measures.