Development cartographic means of expression for representing castles on old maps of the Bohemia Abstract This thesis examines the development of cartographic means of expression that are used for the display of castles, palaces, strongholds and ruins on the old maps of Bohemia in the period from the early 16th century to early 18th century. The work evaluates the positional inaccuracies of location of interest sites through cartometric analysis. The first part is theoretical, in which the issues outlined cartographic semiotics and cartographic expression. Next two parts deal with the oldest cartographic references of the Bohemia, or the description of the analyzed maps. Further, the thesis illustrated the method by which the analysis are extracted. The chapter summarizes contains results of findings. Keywords: old maps of Bohemia, signs for castles, cartographic semiotics, cartometric.

Orientador: Laís Helena Navarro e Lima / Resumo: Introdução: A triagem e avaliação inicial de pacientes com hipovolemia são guiadas pela apresentação dos sintomas clínicos e pelas alterações nos sinais vitais. Frequência cardíaca (FC) e pressão arterial sistólica (PAS), isoladamente, nem sempre refletem com acurácia o início de quadros hipovolêmicos. Contudo, a combinação dos sinais vitais tradicionais (FC/PAS) origina o índice de choque (IC), que se postula ser indicador mais precoce de hipovolemia. Objetivo: A proposta deste estudo foi estabelecer a acurácia diagnóstica do IC para o diagnóstico inicial de hipovolemia decorrente de hemorragia, tanto em ambiente simulado, quanto em situações clínicas obstétricas. Método: Estudos transversais que incluíram dados de indivíduos adultos de qualquer idade ou sexo com suspeita de hemorragia, provenientes de estudos clínicos (obstétricos) ou simulados (doadores de sangue ou submetidos à LBNP – Low body negative pressure), que avaliaram a acurácia do IC e dos sinais vitais tradicionais (PA e FC) isolados no diagnóstico de hipovolemia foram incluídos no presente estudo. Valores considerados como hipovolêmicos foram IC > 0,7, FC > 100 bpm e/ou PAS < 100 mmHg. Obtiveram-se os estudos das seguintes bases de dados: CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE e LILACS, com os termos “shock index” e “hypovolemia” e suas variantes. Última pesquisa foi realizada em maio de 2016. A ferramenta QUADAS avaliou a qualidade metodológica. Metanálise proporcional foi realizada com variáveis dicotômicas e seus respect... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Mestre

Bakgrund: Sepsis är en sjukdom där en infektion ger ett systemiskt inflammationssvar i kroppen. Symtombilden kan vara varierande och även ospecifik. Både incidensen och mortaliteten är hög i världen. Sjukdomen innebär stort lidande för patienterna både under den akuta sjukdomsfasen och i efterförloppet för de överlevande. Framtagna bedömningsinstrumenten grundar sig främst på patientens vitalparametrar, vilka nödvändigtvis inte är avvikande initialt. Genom en ökad kunskap om både subjektiva och objektiva värden har ambulanssjuksköterskan goda möjligheter att identifiera fler patienter med misstänkt sepsis prehospitalt. Syfte: Att beskriva kännetecken och symtom hos patienter med sepsis inom ambulanssjukvården.   Metod: En systematisk litteraturstudie gjord med en integrativ metod enligt Whittemore &amp; Knafl (2005) och en induktiv ansats. Resultatet baseras på 15 vetenskapliga artiklar med kvantitativ, kvalitativ och mixad metod.  Resultat: Resultatet visade att de subjektiva kännetecknen och de objektiva symtomen alla var viktiga delar som gav en helhetsbild av sepsis. Åtta subkategorier gav de två kategorierna En känsla av sjukdom och att inte vara sig själv och En kropp som sviker. De bildade sedan huvudkategorin Helhetsbilden av sepsis – kännetecken och symtom av betydelse.  Slutsats: Symtombilden vid sepsis kunde vara komplex och varierande. Patienterna beskrevs kunna ha kännetecken och symtom från alla kroppens organsystem. Patienterna var ofta mycket påverkade, hade ett stort lidande samt stor risk att avlida i sin sjukdom. / Background: Sepsis is a disease in which an infection produces a systemic inflammatory response in the body. The presentation of signs and symptoms can be varied and non-specific. Both the incidence and mortality are high in the world. The disease leads to great suffering for the patients both during the acute phase of the disease but also in the aftermath for the survivors. The assessment tools are mainly based on the patient's vital signs, which are not necessarily deviating initially. Through an increased knowledge of both subjective and objective parameters, the ambulance clinicians have good possibilities to identify more patients with suspected sepsis in the prehospital setting. Aim: To describe the signs and symptoms in patients with sepsis in the ambulance services. Method: A systematic literature review done with an integrative method according to Whittemore &amp; Knafl (2005) and an inductive approach. The result is based on 15 scientific papers with a variety of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Results: The results showed that subjective signs and objective symptoms were important pieces of the overall picture of sepsis. 8 subcategories formed two categories A feeling of illness and not being oneself and A body that fails. These shaped the main category The overall picture of sepsis – signs and symptoms of significance. Conclusion: The presentation of sepsis could be complex and varied. Patients were described as having signs and symptoms from all the body's organ systems. The patients were often very affected, had a great deal of suffering and a high risk of dying from their disease.

Persuasion and Signs: Semiotics and Rhetoric as Complementary Disciplines The hypothesis we consider in this dissertation is that of complementarity of semiotics and rhetorics, both in symstematical and historical context. The first part deals with the late modern interpretation of the history of rhetorics, sophistry and sophistical rhetoric (showing why i tis necessary to discriminate between these terms). This is illustrated by the discussion about pragmatics and interpretation of ancient rhetoric in the anglo-saxon philosophy of the late 20th century. Topic of persuasion is considered as the main point of investigation for its being common both to rhetoric and semiotics. This is elaborated in the second part of thesis, which concentrates on the analysis of Ch. S. Peirce's late work, especially his classification of signs, semiotics as pure rhetoric, with emphasis on his concept of pragmatism. The pragmatism is the point where semiotics and rhetoric coincide. In the conclusion it is find out, that semiotics and rhetoric are complementary disciplines, at least for their specific account of the notion of sign and persuasion. Keywords Rhetoric, rhetoric, semiotics, semeiotic, sophistry, Lyotard, Vitanza, Nietzsche, Peirce, Deleuze.

Background:Lower back pain is one of the most common health-related complaints in the adult population. Thirty percent of Americans 65 years and older reported symptoms of lower back pain in 2004. With an aging population, the proportion of people over the age of 65 is expected to reach 20% by the year 2030. Because of this increase in older adults, lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) associated with arthritic changes will also likely increase. In older adults, lower back pain is most often caused by degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis. Stenosis is the narrowing ofthe spinal canal, causing pressure on the nerve roots and is frequently treated surgically. Lumbar spinal stenosis is one of the most common reasons for back surgery in patients 65 years and older 2. However, risks associated with surgery increase with age 3-5 and older patients may choose non-surgical treatment for their lower back pain, including injection treatment. Injection treatment, usually consisting of anti-inflammatory medications and analgesics, has improved since the mid-1990's when fluoroscopic guidance was developed. Information about injection treatment for lower back pain is limited, especially in the older population. An extensive review of published literature regarding injection treatment revealed a paucity of information about older adults diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis. In this study, three aims were designed to gain more information about the effectiveness of injection treatment in older patients with lumbar spinal stenosis. In the first (retrospective) study, information about receipt of second injections and time between injections was collected to examine injection usage. In the second and third (prospective) studies, information about pain relief and functional return following injection treatment was collected to examine the effectiveness of injection treatment in patients age 60 and older diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis. To our knowledge, such results have not been repolted for this population in the literature. Objective:Injection treatment is a commonly used non-surgical procedure to alleviate lower back pain in older adults. However, older patients do not have enough information about how long pain relief will last after treatment or the amount of pain relief and functional return they will experience. These studies focused on three topics: 1) usage of injection treatment; 2) effectiveness of injection treatment on pain relief; 3) effectiveness of injection treatment on functional return. In addition, the variations of the effectiveness were examined by selected patient attributes. Methods:In a retrospective study, medical records of patients aged 60 years or older from a high volume dedicated spine center at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. This study included those diagnosed with degenerative LSS, who had not received an injection for lower back pain within six months, and whom were treated between June I, 2006 and May 31, 2007. In two prospective studies, patients scheduled for lumbar injection treatment between January 1 and June 30, 2008 were selected from the University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital Spine Center. Selection criteria included patients age 60 and over, diagnosed with degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis and no previous lumbar injection within 6 months or lumbar surgery within 2 years. The Pain sub-score of the SF-36 questionnaire was used to measure pain at baseline and at one and three months post injection. The Physical Component Score (PCS) of the SF-36 questionnaire and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) were used to measure function at baseline and at one and three months post injection. Variations in longitudinal changes in scores by patient characteristics were analyzed in both unadjusted (univariate) analyses using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and adjusted (multiple regression) analyses using linear mixed effects models. Results: In the retrospective cohort, the mean age of the cohort was 68, 64% were female, 59% were married, with a mean Body Mass index of 32 kg/m2. Of 92 eligible patients, 57% returned for a second injection within six months of the first. The mean number of months between injections was 4.8 for all patients, ranging from 1 to 22 months. When patient characteristics were examined, the only variable that showed a statistically significant difference was age. Patients aged 70 years and older were found to be 67% less likely to return for a second injection when compared to patients age 60-69 (OR=0.33 (0.12 - 0.94)p In the prospective cohort, information was collected on 62 patients. Mean Pain scores improved significantly from baseline to one month (14.1 points), and from baseline to three months (8.3 points). Post injection changes in Pain scores varied by Body Mass Index (BMI) and baseline emotional health. Based on a linear mixed effects model analysis, higher baseline emotional health, as measured by the SF-36 Mental Component Score (MCS>50), was associated with greater reduction in pain over three months when compared to lower emotional health (MCS Conclusion: Patients over age 70 do not return for repeat injection as frequently as patients age 60-69. In addition, each year a patient ages over age 60, they are 10% less likely to return for a repeat injection. Lower back pain in older adults with LSS is clinically significantly alleviated after injection treatment. In addition, injection treatment for LSS is associated with return of lost function needed for daily living activities in older adults. Pain relief and functional return varies by patient personal and clinical characteristics. Higher emotional health was associated with more pain relief and more functional return experienced over three months following injection treatment. Additional information is needed about why older patients do not return for second injections at the same rate as younger patients and how emotional health affects response to injection treatment in older adults.

Host cell attachment by pathogenic bacteria can play very different roles in the course of infection. The pathogenic spirochetes Borrelia hermsii and Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato which cause relapsing fever and Lyme disease, respectively, are transmitted by the bite of infected ticks. After transmission, these spirochetes can cause systemic infection. Relapsing fever spirochetes remain largely in the bloodstream causing febrile episodes, while Lyme disease will often colonize a variety of tissues, such as the heart, joint and nervous system, resulting in a chronic multisystemic disorder. Borrelia species have the ability to bind to various cell types, a process which plays a crucial role in pathogenesis and may influence spirochetal clearance from the bloodstream. Colonization of multiple tissues and cell types is likely promoted by the ability to bind to components found in target tissues, and many B. burgdorferi adhesins have been shown to promote attachment to a wide variety of cells and extracellular matrix components. Different Lyme disease strains have been shown to preferentially colonize certain tissues, although the basis of this tissue tropism is not well understood. In this study we found that among different Lyme disease strains, allelic variation of the adhesin DbpA contributes to variation in its in vitro binding activities raising the possibility that this variation contributes to tissue tropism in vivo. In studying B. hermsii infection, we found evidence by both histological and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of tissues that indicated that red blood cells were removed by tissue resident macrophages in infected mice. Spirochetes in the spleen and liver were often visualized associated with RBCs, lending support to the hypothesis that direct interaction of B. hermsii spirochetes with RBCs leads to clearance of bacteria from the bloodstream. Our findings indicate that host cell attachment play a key role in the establishment of Lyme disease infection, and in contrast contributes to the clearance of relapsing fever infection.

Chronic intake of alcohol can result in a range of pathology in the liver. Whilst the earliest changes observed with chronic ethanol, including the accumulation of lipid, or steatosis, are readily reversible upon cessation of alcohol consumption, longer exposure to ethanol may achieve more complex disease states including steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and cirrhosis that can cause irreversible damage and progress to fulminant hepatic failure. A key concept in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease is that chronic ethanol primes the liver to increased injury through an interplay between hepatocytes and non-parenchymal cells, chiefly immune cells, of the liver. These relationships between hepatocytes and non-parenchymal cell types in alcoholic liver disease are reviewed in Chapter 1A. The Hypoxia Inducible Factors are a set of transcription factors that classically have been described as affecting a homeostatic response to conditions of low oxygen tension. Alcoholic liver disease is marked by increased hepatic metabolic demands, and some evidence exists for increased hepatic tissue hypoxia and upregulation of hypoxia-inducible factor mRNA with chronic alcohol. However, the biological significance of these findings is unknown. In Chapter 1B, we review the literature on recent investigations on the role of hypoxia inducible factors in a broad array of liver diseases, seeking to find common themes of biological function. In subsequent chapters, we investigate the hypothesis that a member of the hypoxia inducible- factor family, HIF1α, has a role in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease. In Chapter 2, we establish a mouse model of alcoholic liver disease and report data confirming HIF1α activation with chronic ethanol. We demonstrate that HIF1α protein, mRNA, and DNA binding activity is upregulated in ethanol-fed mice versus pair-fed mice, and that some upregulation of HIF2α protein is observable as well. In Chapter 3, we utilize a mouse model of hepatocyte-specific HIF1α activation and demonstrate that such mice have exacerbated liver injury, including greater triglyceride accumulation than control mice. Using cre-lox technology, we introduce a degradation resistant mutant of HIF1α in hepatocytes, and after four weeks of ethanol feeding, we demonstrate that mice with the HIF1α transgene have increased liver-weight to body weight ratio and higher hepatic triglyceride levels. Additionally, several HIF1α target genes are upregulated. In Chapter 4, we examine the relationship between HIF1α activation and hepatic lipid accumulation using a recently published in vitro system, in which lipid accumulation was observed after treating Huh7 cells with the chemokine Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 (MCP-1). We report that MCP-1 treatment induces HIF1α nuclear protein accumulation, that HIF1α overexpression in Huh7 cells induces lipid accumulation, and finally, that HIF1α siRNA prevents MCP-1 induced lipid accumulation. In Chapter 5, we use mouse models to investigate the hypothesis that suppression of HIF1α in hepatocytes or cells of the myeloid lineage may have differing effects on the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease. We find that ethanol-fed mice expressing a hepatocyte-specific HIF1α deletion mutant exhibit less elevation in liver-weight body ratio and diminished hepatic triglycerides versus wild-type mice; furthermore, we find that challenging these mice with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) results in less liver enzyme elevation and inflammatory cytokine secretion than in wild-type mice. In Chapter 6, we offer a final summary of our findings and some directions for future work.

Teachers in a New Jersey suburban high school noticed an increase in students' stress and anxiety associated with high-stakes testing, and they were struggling to find strategies and interventions to help. The purpose of this study was to investigate high school English and mathematics teachers' current knowledge, experiences, and perceptions about students' preparation and responses to high-stakes testing and to explore teachers' perceptions about teaching strategies they needed to reduce student test anxiety. Liebert and Morris's bidimensional components of anxiety, emotionality, and worry form the conceptual framework that guided this study. The research questions focused on teachers' perceptions about students' high-stakes testing readiness, students' testing behaviors, and teachers' training needs. A case study design was used to capture the insights of 12 high school English and math teachers through semistructured interviews and a focus group interview; a purposeful sampling process was used to select the participants. Emergent themes were identified through open coding, and the findings were developed and checked for trustworthiness through member checking, rich descriptions, and researcher reflexivity. The findings revealed that teachers recognize that students react in different ways to testing, that students who are prepared for the tests demonstrate greater confidence and less anxiety, and that teachers want more professional development specific to reducing students' anxiety and stress. A professional development project was created to provide teachers with strategies and approaches to prepare students for high-stress testing situations. This study has implications for positive social change by creating a structure to provide teachers with strategies for managing students' test anxiety.

Crashes resulting from automobiles running a red light are typically severe in nature. One way to try to reduce the number and severity of these types of crashes is by increasing the red clearance interval of a traffic signal. In Portland, Oregon, eight intersections received a variety of treatments including red extensions. Determining which treatment had what effect can be difficult to weed out. Using a combination of crash analysis and a model simulating an intersection with red extensions, this paper describes the estimated impact of red light running intersection upgrades and red extensions on crashes. By performing a variety of before and after crash analysis, a reduction of angle crashes after treatments was detected, with a crash modification factor of 0.64 +/- 0.28 using the Empirical-Bayes method. Output from the simple simulation also suggest that red light running crashes can be reduced with red extension technology and confirms crash modification values determined from the Empirical-Bayes method.

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to create a new bankruptcy prediction model and also to design how to use this model for the purposes of credit risk measuring. The starting-point of this work is the analysis of traditional bankruptcy models. It was found out that the traditional bankruptcy model are not enough effective in the current economic conditions and it is necessary to create a new ones. Based on the identified deficiencies of the traditional models a set of two new model series was created. The first series of the created models is based on the use of parametric methods, and the second one is based on the use of newer nonparametric approach. Moreover, a set of factors which are able to identify an imminent bankruptcy was analyzed. It was found, that significant signs of imminent bankruptcy can be identified even five years before the bankruptcy occurs. Based on these findings a new model was created. This model incorporates variables of static and even dynamic character for bankruptcy prediction purposes. The overall classification accuracy of this model is 92.27% of correctly classified active companies and 95.65% of correctly classified bankrupt companies.