Every year, 16 million women aged 15 to 19 years give birth globally. Adolescent births account for 11% of all births globally and 23% of the overall burden of disability and diseases due to pregnancy and childbirth. In the United States, 750,000 adolescents (15-19 years) become pregnant each year, making the United States the developed country with the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy. The economic burden of adolescent pregnancy in the U. S. is $7-15 billion per year. Adolescent pregnancy brings risks associated with pregnancy induced hypertension, preterm infants, maternal and neonatal mortality. Social factors include poverty, low educational levels, alcohol, and drug use. Between 30-50% of adolescent mothers who have a first birth before age 18 years will have a second child within 12 to 24 months. Subsequent adolescent pregnancies compound fetal and maternal risks. Many vulnerable adolescent mothers succumb to external pressures and have a repeat adolescent pregnancy while others are able to overcome the challenges of an adolescent pregnancy and prevent a repeat adolescent pregnancy. This cross sectional survey designed study investigated the effects of resilience and social influences on contraceptive use or abstinence by Black and Hispanic adolescent parenting mothers to prevent a repeat adolescent pregnancy. 140 adolescent mothers were recruited from three postpartum units of a tertiary hospital system in Miami, Florida. The Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale and the Adolescent Social Influence Scale were used to measure resilience and social influences, respectively. Demographic data, length of labor, plan for contraceptive use or abstinence were measured by an investigator developed instrument. Point biserial correlation showed a significant positive correlation between Black adolescent mothers’ resilience and contraceptive use (r =.366, p2(11, N=133) = 27.08, p =.004. (OR = .28). These results indicate a need for interventional strategies to maximize resilience in parenting adolescents to prevent a repeat adolescent pregnancy.

Main motive of this master thesis was the need of good bioinformatics tools for genome comparison and improvement of one of the existing tools - RepeatExplorer. This work offers an overview of transposable elements in DNA, existing tools for identification and analysis of repetitions in sequenced genomes, summary of currently used genome sequencing methods. This work describes shortcomings of RepeatExplorer tool with focus on comparative analysis of genomes. Two solutions to remove these problems were designed and implemented. The first solution is designed for comparing pairs of genomes. The principle of this solution is based on comparison of similarity of distribution of contigs coverages using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, thanks to which we are able to determine different parts in the genomes.The second solution, which is used to compare multiple genomes, is based on the method of mapping reads from compared genomes to the reference genome contigs and provides contigs coverage graphs, by which we are able to determine the variability of the repeats.Their functionality was verified on real NGS data of organism Silene latifolia.

No description available.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de concevoir, implémenter et évaluer les algorithmes cross-layer pratiques. Nous nous concentrons sur la technologie LTE et les réseaux non coordonnés post-LTE où l'interférence est un enjeu majeur compte tenu des nouvelles tendances du trafic. L'objectif est d'allouer les ressources radio d'une manière efficace. Nous développons des modèles d'interférence mathématiques et informatiques qui nous permettent de comprendre le comportement de ces réseaux et nous appliquons une approche basée sur la théorie de l'information à différents scénarios d'interférence et caractéristiques du trafic. Nous avons essayé de s'approcher le plus possible de systèmes réels pour être en mesure de tester la faisabilité des techniques proposées. La thèse porte sur l'évaluation de la performance des scénarios d'interférence dans les réseaux 4G, en particulier celles qui découlent du déploiements de cellules de petite taille ("small cells"). Le travail dans cette thèse s'adresse également à l'analyse de l'allocation des ressources et la requête de répétition automatique hybride (HARQ) à redondance incrémentale pour les interférences sporadiques (de façon plus générale les canaux variables dans le temps) qui permet uniquement des informations partielles de l'état du canal à l'émetteur. Ce travail est ensuite appliquée à la conception d'ordonnanceur pour les stations de base LTE et inclut une analyse de performance pour les modems LTE réels. / The aim of this thesis is to design, implement and evaluate practical cross-layer algorithms. We focus on LTE and post-LTE uncoordinated networks where interference is a key issue given the new traffic patterns. The goal is to allocate the radio resources in an efficient way. We develop mathematical and computational interference models that allow us to understand the behavior of such networks and we apply an information-theoretic approach to different interference scenarios and traffic characteristics. We have tried to remain as close as possible to practical systems to be able to test the feasibility of the proposed techniques. The thesis deals with performance evaluation of interference scenarios in 4G networks, in particular those arising from small-cell deployments. The work in this thesis also deals with analysis of resource-allocation and incremental-redundancy based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) for bursty interference (or more general time-varying channels) which allows for only partial channel state information at the transmitter. The work is then applied to practical scheduler design for LTE base stations and includes performance analysis for real LTE modems.

Актуальность темы магистерской диссертации обусловлена потребностью компании йога-туров в подборе и внедрении решения модернизации способа стимулирования повторных продаж. Научная новизна исследования заключается в разработке решения по модернизации процесса стимулирования повторных продаж, основанного на анализе рисков и текущих бизнес-процессов компании сферы туризма Черноморского побережья Российской Федерации. Результаты работы: разработана стратегия цифровизации для компании йога-туров, увеличивающая эффективность процесса повторной продажи тура. / The relevance of the topic of the master's thesis is due to the need of the yoga tours company in the selection and implementation of a solution to modernize the method of stimulating repeat sales. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the development of a solution to modernize the process of stimulating repeat sales, based on an analysis of risks and current business processes of a company in the tourism sector of the Black Sea coast of the Russian Federation. Results of the work: a digitalization strategy has been developed for the yoga tours company, which increases the efficiency of the process of re-selling the tour.

Les protéines PentatricoPeptide-Repeats (PPR) représentent la plus grande famille de protéines de liaison à l’ARN connue. Elles sont caractérisées par la présence de motifs répétés en tandem d’environ 35 résidus ayant une structure hélice-tour-hélice. Depuis les premières études sur l’organisme modèle Arabidopsis thaliana, les protéines PPR ont aussi été découvertes chez d’autres espèces non-plantes, incluant les levures et l’humain. Cependant, la détection des protéines PPR en dehors des plantes est compliquée par le fait que les outils de recherche sont tous conçus pour les protéines de plantes. Récemment, une étude réalisée chez les levures a rapporté une méthode itérative semi-automatisée d’identification de PPR utilisant des profils Hidden Markov Models (HMM). Inspirés par cette approche, nous visons ici à développer une méthode complètement automatisée plus généralisable et sensible qui ne dépend pas du protéome de départ. Comme preuve de concept, nous avons choisi une espèce non reliée aux plantes possédant le plus grand nombre de protéines PPR en-dehors des plantes – le protiste marin unicellulaire Diplonema papillatum. Il s’agit d’un modèle émergent ayant reçu beaucoup d’intérêt pour l’excentricité de l’expression de son génome mitochondrial, pour lequel il a été suggéré que les protéines PPR jouent un rôle clé. Nous avons ici développé une approche itérative pour identifier et cataloguer les protéines PPR chez D. papillatum. Les fonctionnalités particulières de notre algorithme incluent l’inspection des intervalles de 30 à 40 résidus entre les motifs classiques déjà identifiés et l’utilisation des structures secondaires caractéristiques des motifs PPR pour valider les motifs candidats nouvellement identifiés. Au final, nous avons identifié près de 800 motifs PPR chez D.papillatum, dont plusieurs motifs « déviants » identifiés dans les espaces entre les motifs. La validation expérimentale des motifs candidats les plus prometteurs est en attente. / PentatricoPeptide-Repeat (PPR) proteins represent the largest family of RNA-binding proteins known. They are defined by containing tandemly arranged, ~35-residue long motifs assuming a helix-turn-helix structure, which are referred to as PPR motifs. Since the seminal studies undertaken in the model organism Arabidopsis, a few PPR proteins have been also discovered outside plants, including yeast and human. However, the detection of PPR proteins in non-plant eukaryotes is complicated by the fact that current search tools are tailored toward plants. Recently, a semi-automated method has been reported for identifying PPR motifs in yeast using iterative searches with profile Hidden Markov models (HMMs). Inspired by this work, we aimed to develop a fully automated, sensitive approach that can be used for detecting PPR proteins in any species, when using the corresponding proteome as input. For a proof of concept, we used a species that contains the largest number of PPR genes outside the plant kingdom –the unicellular protist Diplonema papillatum. This emerging model system has garnered much interest for the eccentricities of its mitochondrial gene expression, in which PPR proteins are posited to play a key role. Here, we have developed an iterative HMM-search method that comprehensively catalogues and classifies PPR motifs in D. papillatum. Particular features of our algorithm are that it inspects closely 30 to 40 residue-long intervals between readily identified (classical) motifs, makes use of the characteristic secondary structure of PPR motifs to validate newly detected candidate motifs. In total, we have identified around 800 PPR motifs in D. papillatum. Including several deviant candidates detected in ”gaps”. High ranking representatives of both classical and deviant motifs await experimental validation.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Satellite DNA (satDNA) is among the fastest evolving elements in the genome and is highly abundant in some eukaryotic genomes. Its highly repetitive nature means it is challenging to assemble, and thus underrepresented in most assemblies and often understudied as a result. Birds are an ideal model organism for the study of satDNA and its evolution, since the large amount of available sequenced genomes of this clade allows for dense sampling across various evolutionary timescales, and the low number of satDNA families within their satellitomes facilitates their study and comparison between species. Here, we characterize satDNA and its evolution across Passeriformes, an avian clade containing two-thirds of all bird species spanning ~50 million years of evolution. With this goal we use both short-read data and long-read assemblies of species representative of over 30 passerine families in this clade to shed light on the evolution of its satellitome. We focus on examining the phylogenetic relationships between satellites common to most species as well as characterizing satellite array structure and location in genome assemblies. We also analyse satellite abundance in each genome, focusing on differences in the satellite content between male and female individuals to look for satellites present in the female-specific W sex chromosome and the germline-restricted chromosome. Seven satDNA families shared by a quarter of the species were found, that were likely present in an ancestral species shared by most, if not all the species of Passeriformes. We observed that satDNA evolution is complex and does not follow species phylogeny and that satellite arrays generally have a simple head-to-tail conformation, with evidence in four of the sampled species of satDNA arrays with higher-order repeats. We also found two satDNA families with fairly consistent monomer length and conserved regions that we hypothesise to might be functional.