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Anaerobic co-digestion of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), with thickened waste activated sludge (TWAS) and primary sludge (PS) has the potential to enhance (biodegradation) of solid waste, increase longevity of existing landfills and lead to more sustainable development by improving waste to energy production. This study reports on mesophilic batch anaerobic biological methane potential (BMP) assays carried out with different concentrations and combinations (ratios) of OFMSW, TWAS (microwave (MW) pre-treated and untreated) and PS to assess digester stability and potential improved specific biodegradability and potential increased specific biogas production by digestion of OFMSW with PS and TWAS in various tri-substrate mixtures. Results indicated improvements in specific biogas production with concomitant improvements in COD and volatile solid (VS) removal for co-digestion of OMSW, TWAS and PS vs. controls. In terms of improvements in biogas production and digester stability the OFMSW:TWAS:PS:50:25:25 ratio with or without TWAS MW treatment was deemed best for further continuous digester studies. At a 15d HRT which is the regulatory policy in the province of Ontario for municipal mesophilic anaerobic TWAS:PS treatment, co-digestion of OFMSW:TWAS:PS, and OFMSW:TWASMW:PS resulted in a 1.38 and 1.46 fold relative improvement in biogas production and concomitant waste stabilization when compared to TWAS:PS and TWASMW:PS digestion at the same HRT and volumetric VS loading rate respectively. Treatment of OFMSW with PS and TWAS provides beneficial effects that could be exploited at MWWTP that are being operated at loading rates less than design capacity.

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El universo textil del Perú antiguo es muy amplio y en él destacan, además de los tejidos Paracas, los Nascas herederos de los Paracas, los Wari con el empleo de hilos muy finos y decoración polícroma geométrica, así como los Incas con los tocapus, que para algunos estudiosos, como Victoria de la Jara, Kauffman Doig y William Burns, podrían representar diez consonantes; Dentro de este universo, imposible de abarcar por su magnitud, se ha escogido el Manto Blanco de Paracas, textil no estudiado bajo la lupa de la historia del arte, cuyas características iconográficas lo hacen único en su género. (...) Esta investigación tiene por objeto llenar un vacío desde la perspectiva de la historia del arte y demostrar que el Manto Blanco de Paracas, además de ser un objeto ritual o ceremonial, es una obra de arte. Este formó parte del ajuar funerario de un importante personaje de esa época, más destacado que otros. Asimismo, demostrar que el Manto Blanco posee una carga mítico-religiosa dada por los íconos representados. El presente trabajo está estructurado en tres capítulos. El primero aborda un panorama general sobre la cultura Paracas. El segundo está dedicado al Manto Blanco desde un análisis técnico, formal, estilístico y su organización iconográfica. El tercer capítulo es el estudio iconográfico de los diez seres bordados en el Manto Blanco. Deseamos expresar nuestra más profunda gratitud a distintas personas que han contribuido en la ejecución de este trabajo. En primer lugar agradecer especialmente a la doctora Nanda Leonardini por su asesoramiento, apoyo con material bibliográfico, acertadas sugerencias y recomendaciones. Al Museo de Arqueología y Antropología del CCSM, que me permitió consultar el Archivo Tello y facilitarme el material fotográfico. Al Archivo Domingo Angulo de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, donde obtuve documentos relacionados a la adquisición del Manto Blanco por la universidad. Al arqueólogo Mario Polia, a la arqueobotánica Gabriela Bertoné, al malacólogo Manuel Gorriti Manchego, al arqueólogo Fernando Fujita Alarcón por animarme a continuar adelante, a la arqueóloga Delia Aponte, a la doctora Mary Frame, al profesor de teatro Arturo Villacorta por sus orientaciones. A Morroponcho que siempre me acompaña.

Introducción: Un gran número de personas son afectadas por hepatitis, una enfermedad que causa una gran morbilidad y mortalidad. El riesgo principal de esta enfermedad es su falta de sintomatología, por lo que se estima que cientos de millones de personas están infectadas crónicamente sin saberlo y, por lo tanto, en riesgo de desarrollar cirrosis, descompensación hepática y carcinoma hepatocelular. La real prevalencia a nivel nacional no se conoce con exactitud, haciendo necesario estudios que contribuyan a la estimación de esta. Objetivo: Determinar la seroprevalencia de los marcadores infecciosos de VHB (HBsAg y Anticore VHB) y VHC (Anti VHC) así como la seroprevalencia según las características de los predonantes que acudieron al Banco de Sangre del Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo durante el periodo 2011-2014. Diseño: Se trata de un estudio transversal, descriptivo y retrospectivo. Lugar: Banco de Sangre del Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo. Materiales y métodos: Se usaron las fichas de selección del postulante realizadas a los predonantes que acudieron al banco de sangre del Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo en el periodo 2011- 2014, para la obtención de los casos reactivos. Se incluyeron en el presente estudio 604 casos que resultaron reactivos al antígeno de superficie (HBsAg) para el virus de la hepatitis B y anticuerpos para el virus de la hepatitis C (Anti VHC) y B (Anti core VHB). Los datos recolectados fueron procesados y analizados en el paquete estadístico SPSS versión 20 para Windows: Prueba de Chi cuadrado y estimación de riesgo (OR). Resultados: Se encontró una una seroprevalencia global entre los predonantes de 1.94% (551/28276) para los marcadores de VHB y 0.19% (53/28276) para el de VHC. La seroprevalencia por marcador fue de 0.17% para HBsAg, 1.78% para Anti core VHB, y Anti VHC con 0.19%. Las seroprevalencias según las características de los predonantes fueron más altas en el caso del marcador Anti core VHB, obteniéndose 1.78% en donación por reposición, 1.75% en el género masculino, 1.26% en el grupo etario de 31 a 60 años, 1.55% en el grupo sanguíneo O, 1.74% para el Rh positivo, 0.67% en los solteros (38.7 %), y un 1.55% en aquellos con una sola pareja sexual. Se halló un riesgo significativo (OR=1.6, IC95%=1.03-2.50) entre el género masculino y la reactividad al Anti core VHB además de la asociación significativa entre el grupo sanguíneo B y los marcadores de hepatitis B (Anti core VHB y HBsAg), mostrándose como factor protector (OR=0.4, IC95%=0.14-0.92) y factor de riesgo (OR=5.5, IC95%=2.02-15.13) en dichos marcadores respectivamente. Conclusiones y recomendaciones: Los resultados de este estudio sugieren una baja seroprevalencia en general en el caso de hepatitis C pero más alta para los marcadores de hepatitis B de acuerdo a los reportes nacionales e internacionales. La relación entre el grupo sanguíneo y la predisposición a adquirir infecciones como hepatitis requiere de más estudios. Es necesaria la realización de estudios epidemiológicos adecuadamente planteados y organizados en una mayor población, para tener un mejor conocimiento de las características epidemiológicas de la infección de hepatitis B y C a nivel nacional y consecuentemente establecer mejores políticas de salud.

Master of Arts - Arts / During the Islamic period (8th to 15th centuries) glass beads are the most abundant evidence of international trade in southern Africa. Archaeologists, however, have underutilized them because they are small, monochrome and difficult to categorize. I show they can be divided into identifiable series that have temporal parameters. Once identified, the beads can help interpret site chronology as well as regional and international interaction. Glass beads are also useful in reconstructing trade patterns in the Indian Ocean. Present perceptions concerning Islamic period trade to eastern and southern Africa are based largely on Islamic ceramics and Arab documents. Thus, it is generally believed that trade to southern Africa was an extension of the East Coast monsoon-driven trade that was conducted mainly by local mariners familiar with the difficult conditions in the Mozambique Channel. Comparison of glass bead assemblages from eastern and southern Africa, however, shows that it is unlikely the beads reaching the south were traded through ports to the north. Based on distribution patterns and recent chemical analyses, I propose they were arriving directly from South and/or Southeast Asia.

The retina of the human eye has the potential to reveal crucial information about several diseases such as diabetes. Several signs such as microaneurysms (MA) manifest themselves as early indicators of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). Detection of these early signs is important from a clinical perspective in order to suggest appropriate treatment for DR patients. This work aims to improve the detection accuracy of MAs in colour fundus images. While it is expected that multiple images per eye are available in a clinical setup, proposed segmentation algorithms in the literature do not make use of these multiple images. This work introduces a novel MA detection algorithm and a framework for combining spatial and temporal images. A new MA detection method has been proposed which uses a Gaussian matched filter and an ensemble classifier with 70 features for the detection of candidates. The proposed method was evaluated on three public datasets (171 images in total) and has shown improvement in performance for two of the sets when compared to a state-of-the-art method. For lesion-based performance, the proposed method has achieved Retinopathy Online Challenge (ROC) scores of 0.3923, 2109 and 0.1523 in the MESSIDOR, DIARETDB1 and ROC datasets respectively. Based on the ensemble algorithm, a framework for the information combination is developed and consists of image alignment, detecting candidates with likelihood scores, matching candidates from aligned images, and finally fusing the scores from the aligned image pairs. This framework is used to combine information both spatially and temporally. A dataset of 320 images that consists of both spatial and temporal pairs was used for the evaluation. An improvement of performance by 2% is shown after combining spatial information. The framework is applied to temporal image pairs and the results of combining temporal information are analyzed and discussed.

The study of cell signalling in schistosomes is crucial in deepening our knowledge of the biology of these blood flukes, which affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Here, Akt/protein kinase B (PKB) signalling has been functionally characterised and mapped in Schistosoma mansoni; an Akt variant of approximately 52 kDa has been characterised and RNA interference of the S. mansoni Akt gene, resulted in an 84% reduction in Akt expression. The phosphorylation (activation) status of the characterised Akt protein was increased by host molecules, including insulin and L-arginine in somules and adult worms, and L-arginine and linoleic acid in cercariae. Akt phosphorylation (activation) was also attenuated by Akt Inhibitor X and herbimycin A treatment. Immunohistochemistry/confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed phosphorylated Akt in all S. mansoni human infective/resident life stages. Somules and adult worms displayed activated Akt primarily in the tegument, particularly the tubercles and gynaecophoric canal of adult males. Cercariae exhibited activated Akt in the nervous system and punctate regions along the length of the tail prompting investigation into the role of Akt in cercarial motility. Behavioural studies demonstrated a significant increase in cercarial swimming in response to host factors, which was attenuated following exposure to Akt inhibitor X. The striking activation of Akt observed in the tegument of adult worms stimulated research into its possible role in glucose uptake in this host-interactive layer. RNAi of Akt resulted in a 59% and 47% reduction in SGTP4 glucose transporter expression in male and female adult worms respectively with a concomitant reduction in glucose uptake by the parasite. In somules, the expression of SGTP4 and its evolution at the apical tegument membrane during transformation were significantly attenuated by Akt Inhibitor X; a 74% reduction in glucose uptake was also demonstrated following Akt inhibition. Bioinformatic analysis of S. mansoni Akt interacting proteins uncovered a putative connection between Akt and Rab vesicle trafficking proteins and a mechanistic model illuminating the possible role of Akt in the translocation of SGTP4 to the parasite surface was proposed. Collectively, this research highlights the significance of Akt in schistosome homeostasis and host-parasite interactions and thus demonstrates that Akt may be a suitable target for anti-schistosome drug development strategies.

BACKGROUND: Pre-term delivery is known to cause developmental problems due to the fragile nature of the premature brain. In particular, ventriculomegaly is a commonly observed phenomenon due to the hemorrhaging of the germinal matrix, and may cause alterations in the volumes of gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid in growing pre-term children. METHODS: The volume and symmetry of a sample population of ELGAN (Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborns) and normal-term population obtained from the NIH Study of Normal Brain Development was evaluated. The ELGAN group consisted of 88 subjects from age group 9 to 11 and the normal-term group consisted of 68 subjects from age group 7 to 11. Magnetic resonance images were taken from both samples and the intracranial matter was measured and segmented. RESULTS: Histograms of the obtained volumes showed a normal distribution and statistical analysis for each sample group and gender. The ELGAN group had higher intracranial volumes and showed statistically significant asymmetry that was not present in the normal term population with a larger right brain than left brain. Discussion: Results indicate that preterm delivery may alter processes that allow for symmetrical brain development and heavily favor the relative higher expansion of the right side of the brain. CONCLUSION: Further analysis of the concentration and location of the white matter and gray matter in both preterm and normal term children is necessary in order to understand the adaptive mechanisms that may be activated in order to offset the damage done to the premature brain.

In February 2017, the World Health organization published a list of 12 antibiotic-resistant "priority pathogens" that pose the greatest threat to human health. Amongst these, in the high priority group was 'Neisseria gonorrhoea'. When considering 'N. meningitdis' the highest rates of incidence are seen in infants with peak seen in adolescents and the elderly in some countries. CREE have been indentified near virulence and metabolic genes as well being present in the pathogenic 'Neisseria' species. It was therefore seen as an interesting area to undertake gene expression research. To look at the transcriptome and effective method of RNA extraction needed to be considered. Experiments found that the Qiagen RNeasy kit was the most successful kit to extract RNA from cultures of 'N. gonorrhoeae' and 'N. meningitidis'. This research, in the assessment of the transcriptome, has demonstrated that the presence of CREE is associated with the presence on ncRNAs in the genome. CREE locations in the neisserial genomes are frequently found near or overlapping SIPHT predicted ncRNAs. The transcriptome has also shown that CREE can invert at its location with the potential to impact gene expression. Research set out in this thesis has set the ground work for some interesting areas to be taken up for further investigation.