The introduction of navigation in liver surgery in Brazil

The authors thoroughly report the development, the technical aspects and the performance of the first navigated liver resections, by laparotomy and laparoscopy, in Brazil, done at the National Cancer Institute, Ministry of Health, using a surgical navigator.

The Role of Universities in the Triple Helix model of innovation management within the biotechnology industry, Case example: Turku Science Park Network

Biotechnology has been recognized as the key strategic technology for industrial growth. The industry is heavily dependent on basic research. Finland continues to rank in the top 10 of Europe's most innovative countries in terms of tax-policy, education system, infrastructure and the number of patents issued. Regardless of the excellent statistical results, the output of this innovativeness is below acceptable. Research on the issues hindering the output creation has already been done and the identifiable weaknesses in the Finland's National Innovation system are the non-existent growth of entrepreneurship and the missing internationalization. Finland is proven to have all the enablers of the innovation policy tools, but is lacking the incentives and rewards to push the enablers, such as knowledge and human capital, forward. Science Parks are the biggest operator in research institutes in the Finnish Science and Technology system. They exist with the purpose of speeding up the commercialization process of biotechnology innovations which usually include technological uncertainty, technical inexperience, business inexperience and high technology cost. Innovation management only internally is a rather historic approach, current trend drives towards open innovation model with strong triple helix linkages. The evident problems in the innovation management within the biotechnology industry are examined through a case study approach including analysis of the semi-structured interviews which included biotechnology and business expertise from Turku School of Economics. The results from the interviews supported the theoretical implications as well as conclusions derived from the pilot survey, which focused on the companies inside Turku Science Park network. One major issue that the Finland's National innovation system is struggling with is the fact that it is technology driven, not business pulled. Another problem is the university evaluation scale which focuses more on number of graduates and short-term factors, when it should put more emphasis on the cooperation success in the long-term, such as the triple helix connections with interaction and knowledge distribution. The results of this thesis indicated that there is indeed requirement for some structural changes in the Finland's National innovation system and innovation policy in order to generate successful biotechnology companies and innovation output. There is lack of joint output and scales of success, lack of people with experience, lack of language skills, lack of business knowledge and lack of growth companies.

Validation of a simple and inexpensive method for the quantitation of infarct in the rat brain

A gravimetric method was evaluated as a simple, sensitive, reproducible, low-cost alternative to quantify the extent of brain infarct after occlusion of the medial cerebral artery in rats. In ether-anesthetized rats, the left medial cerebral artery was occluded for 1, 1.5 or 2 h by inserting a 4-0 nylon monofilament suture into the internal carotid artery. Twenty-four hours later, the brains were processed for histochemical triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining and quantitation of the schemic infarct. In each TTC-stained brain section, the ischemic tissue was dissected with a scalpel and fixed in 10% formalin at 0ºC until its total mass could be estimated. The mass (mg) of the ischemic tissue was weighed on an analytical balance and compared to its volume (mm³), estimated either by plethysmometry using platinum electrodes or by computer-assisted image analysis. Infarct size as measured by the weighing method (mg), and reported as a percent (%) of the affected (left) hemisphere, correlated closely with volume (mm³, also reported as %) estimated by computerized image analysis (r = 0.88; P < 0.001; N = 10) or by plethysmography (r = 0.97-0.98; P < 0.0001; N = 41). This degree of correlation was maintained between different experimenters. The method was also sensitive for detecting the effect of different ischemia durations on infarct size (P < 0.005; N = 23), and the effect of drug treatments in reducing the extent of brain damage (P < 0.005; N = 24). The data suggest that, in addition to being simple and low cost, the weighing method is a reliable alternative for quantifying brain infarct in animal models of stroke.

The advancement of innovations in communications industry: A case study of Russian Post company

The purpose of this study is to provide a project aimed on solving the problem of advancement of innovations for Russian Post company that is the main actor on the Russian postal service market. This project is constructed through gathering and scrutinizing two essential informational packages, with first being precise information about Russian Post business processes and structure in order to find out the weak spots and hindering forces, and the second being benchmarking analysis of product and service portfolio of company's peers in Europe and Australia in order to evaluate existing experience and gather additional sources that can facilitate the advancement of innovations. These informational packages are studied and sent through the matrix analysis that must highlight customer and technical requirements which emphasize the innovativeness and problem-solving purpose of the project and lay stress on the assuring characteristics that must to be met in order to advance the project. The project itself is aimed on providing Russian Post company with several solutions, both managerial and engineering, which are aimed on easing problem-solving processes and lay the foundation for continuous innovation and value increase for Russian Post company, its partners and its customers. Project's payback period is been calculated as well.

The nature of avidyÄ in Buddhism and VedÄ nta

This thesis deals with the nature of ignorance as it was interpreted in the Upani~adic tradition, specifically in Advaita Vedanta, and in early and Mahayana Buddhism , e specially in the Madhyamika school of Buddhism. The approach i s a historical and comparative one. It examines the early thoughts of both the upanis.a ds and Buddhism abou t avidya (ignorance), shows how the notion was treated by the more speculative and philosphically oriented schools which base d themselves on the e arly works, and sees how their views differ. The thesis will show that the Vedinta tended to treat avidya as a topic for metaphysical s peculation as t he s chool developed, drifting from its initial e xistential concerns, while the Madhyamika remained in contact with the e xistential concerns evident in the first discourses of the Buddha. The word "notion" has been chosen for use in referring t o avidya, even though it may have non-intellectual and emotional connotations, to avoid more popular a lternatives such as "concept" or "idea". In neither the Upani,ads, Advaita Vedanta, or Buddhism is ignorance merely a concept or an idea. Only in a secondary sense, in texts and speech , does it become one. Avidya has more to do with the lived situation in which man finds himself, with the subjectobject separation in which he f eels he exists, than with i i i intel lect ual constr ucts . Western thought has begun to r ealize the same with concerns such as being in modern ontology, and has chosen to speak about i t i n terms of the question of being . Avidya, however, i s not a 'question' . If q ue stions we r e to be put regarding the nature of a vidya , they would be more of t he sort "What is not avidya?", though e ven here l anguage bestows a status t o i t which avidya does not have. In considering a work of the Eastern tradition, we f ace t he danger of imposing Western concepts on it. Granted t hat avidya is customari ly r endered i n English as ignorance, the ways i n which the East and West view i gno rance di f f er. Pedagogically , the European cultures, grounded in the ancient Greek culture, view ignorance as a l ack or an emptiness. A child is i gnorant o f certain t hings and the purpose o f f ormal education , in f act if not in theory, is to fill him with enough knowledge so that he can cope wit h t he complexities and the e xpectations of s ociety. On another level, we feel t hat study and research will l ead t o the discovery o f solutions, which we now lack , for problems now defying solut i on . The East, on the o t her hand, sees avidya in a d i fferent light.Ignorance isn't a lack, but a presence. Religious and philosophical l iterature directs its efforts not towards acquiring something new, but at removing t.he ideas and opinions that individuals have formed about themselves and the world. When that is fully accomplished, say the sages , t hen Wisdom, which has been obscured by those opinions, will present itself. Nothing new has to be learned, t hough we do have t o 'learn' that much. The growing interest in t he West with Eastern religions and philosophies may, in time, influence our theoretical and practical approaches to education and learning, not only in the established educati onal institutions, but in religious , p sychological, and spiritual activities as well. However, the requirements o f this thesis do no t permit a formulation of revolutionary method or a call to action. It focuses instead on the textual arguments which attempt to convince readers that t he world in which they take themselves to exist is not, in essence, real, on the ways i n which the l imitations of language are disclosed, and on the provisional and limited schemes that are built up to help students see through their ignorance. The metaphysic s are provisional because they act only as spurs and guides. Both the Upanisadic and Buddhist traditions that will be dealt with here stress that language constantly fails to encompass the Real. So even terms s uch as 'the Real', 'Absolute', etc., serve only to lead to a transcendent experience . The sections dealing with the Upanisads and Advaita Vedanta show some of the historical evolution of the notion of avidya, how it was dealt with as maya , and the q uestions that arose as t o its locus. With Gau?apada we see the beginnings of a more abstract treatment of the topic, and , the influence of Buddhism. Though Sankhara' S interest was primarily directed towards constructing a philosophy to help others attain mok~a ( l iberation), he too introduced t echnica l t e rminology not found in the works of his predecessors. His work is impressive , but areas of it are incomplete. Numbers of his followers tried to complete the systematic presentation of his insi ghts . Their work focuses on expl anat i ons of adhyasa (superimposition ) , t he locus and object of ignorance , and the means by which Brahman takes itself to be the jiva and the world. The section on early Buddhism examines avidya in the context o f the four truths, together with dubkha (suffering), the r ole it p l ays in t he chain of dependent c ausation , a nd t he p r oblems that arise with t he doctrine of anatman. With t he doct rines of e arly Buddhism as a base, the Madhyamika elaborated questions that the Buddha had said t e nded not t o edi f ication. One of these had to do with own - being or svabhava. Thi s serves a s a centr e around which a discussion o f i gnorance unfolds, both i ndividual and coll ective ignorance. There follows a treatment of the cessation of ignorance as it is discussed within this school . The final secti on tries to present t he similarities and differences i n the natures o f ignorance i n t he two traditions and discusses the factors responsible for t hem . ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Sinha for the time spent II and suggestions made on the section dealing with Sankara and the Advait.a Vedanta oommentators, and Dr. Sprung, who supervised, direoted, corrected and encouraged the thesis as a whole, but especially the section on Madhyamika, and the final comparison.

The Political and Artistic Program of Prince Petru Rares of Moldavia (1527-1538 and 1541-1546) and the Fresco Series Depicting the “Life of the Mother of God” in the Church of Humor Monastery

En 1993, l’église du monastère Humor et six autres églises du nord de la Moldavie (Roumanie) ont été classifiés comme patrimoine de l'UNESCO, en particulier en raison de leurs caractéristiques iconographiques et architecturales uniques. Construit au seizième siècle, le monastère Humor est devenu un riche centre religieux et culturel sous le patronage du prince Petru Rares de Moldavie. Ce centre a encouragé les innovations architecturales ecclésiales, ainsi qu’un programme très prolifique de fresques, extérieures et intérieures, exprimant une créativité au-delà du canon de la peinture de l'époque. La présente thèse est concentrée sur ces innovations architecturales et iconographiques, comprises à la lumière du contexte historique de ce moment unique dans l'histoire de la Moldavie, dans le siècle qui suivit la chute de Constantinople (1453). Tandis que la première partie de la thèse est concentrée sur ces circonstances historiques, et plus précisément sur l'impact du patronage du Prince Rares, la deuxième partie de la recherche est concentrée sur l'analyse des sources littéraires et de la théologie d’une série unique de fresques, placé dans la gropnita (chambre funéraire) de l’église monastique d’Humor, évoquant la vie de la Mère de Dieu. La série est un exemple extraordinaire d’interaction des textes, le Protévangile de Jacques et le Synaxarion, avec l'iconographie. Une attention particulière à l'iconographie du monastère Humor démontre le besoin de la corrélation entre texte et icône d'une part, ainsi que la nécessité d’une corrélation entre les études théologiques, l'art et l’histoire d’autre part. Un autre avantage de la recherche est de contribuer à une appréciation plus riche des trésors culturels et religieux des communautés chrétiennes de l'Europe de l'Est aux points de vue religieux et culturel, en réponse à leur reconnaissance comme patrimoine de l’UNESCO.

Towards a new Qur’ânic hermeneutics based on historico-critical and intertextual approaches : the case of the crucifixion of Jesus in the tafâsîr of eight muslim exegetes

Le Coran et la Sunna (la tradition du prophète Muḥammad) relatée dans les aḥâdîth (les traditions orales du Prophète) représentent la source éternelle d’inspiration et de savoir à laquelle les Musulmans se réfèrent pour agir, réagir et interagir. Par le fait même, tout au long de l’histoire musulmane, ces sources sacrées ont été à la base des relations des Musulmans avec autrui, incluant les Chrétiens. Les trois éléments majeurs de différenciation entre l’islam et le christianisme sont : la nature divine de Jésus, la trinité ainsi que la crucifixion et la mort de Jésus sur la croix. La position tranchée du Coran quant aux deux premiers points ne laisse place à aucun débat académique. Cependant, l’ambiguïté du texte coranique quant à la crucifixion de Jésus et sa mort a favorisé de nombreux débats entre mufassirûn (les exégètes du Coran). Cette thèse est une analyse textuelle des deux passages coraniques qui traitent de cette troisième différence. Pour cette étude textuelle et intertextuelle, les tafâsîr (interprétations du Coran) de huit mufassirûn appartenant à différentes madhâhib (écoles d’interprétation) et périodes de l’histoire des relations musulmanes-chrétiennes sont utilisés en combinaison avec certaines approches et méthodes récentes telles que : historico-critique et critique rédactionnelle. De plus, trois nouvelles théories développées dans la thèse enrichissent les outils herméneutiques de la recherche : la « théorie des cinq couches de sens », la « théorie des messages coraniques doubles » et la « théorie de la nature humaine tripartite ». À la lumière de ces théories et méthodes, il apparaît que l’ambiguïté coranique au sujet de la crucifixion et de la mort de Jésus est une invitation claire de la part du Coran incitant les Musulmans et les Chrétiens à vivre avec cette ambiguïté insoluble. La conclusion de cette thèse contribue directement à de meilleures relations musulmanes-chrétiennes, renforçant l’appel coranique (Coran 3:64, 103) à ces deux communautés leurs demandant de se cramponner aux points communs majeurs, d’intégrer leurs différences mineures et de consacrer leurs énergies pour une vie harmonieuse entre eux et laisser le reste dans les mains du Dieu qu’ils ont en commun.

Emma Hamilton, a Model of Agency in Late Eighteenth-Century Europe

Emma Hamilton (1765-1815) eut un impact considérable à un moment charnière de l’histoire et de l’art européens. Faisant preuve d’une énorme résilience, elle trouva un moyen efficace d’affirmer son agentivité et fut une source d’inspiration puissante pour des générations de femmes et d’artistes dans leur propre quête d’expression et de réalisation de soi. Cette thèse démontre qu’Emma tira sa puissance particulière de sa capacité à négocier des identités différentes et parfois même contradictoires – objet et sujet ; modèle et portraiturée ; artiste, muse et œuvre d’art ; épouse, maîtresse et prostituée ; roturière et aristocrate ; mondaine et ambassadrice : et interprète d’une myriade de caractères historiques, bibliques, littéraires et mythologiques, tant masculins que féminins. Épouse de l’ambassadeur anglais à Naples, favorite de la reine de Naples et amante de l’amiral Horatio Nelson, elle fut un agent sur la scène politique pendant l’époque révolutionnaire et napoléonienne. Dans son ascension sociale vertigineuse qui la mena de la plus abjecte misère aux plus hauts échelons de l’aristocratie anglaise, elle sut s’adapter, s’ajuster et se réinventer. Elle reçut et divertit d’innombrables écrivains, artistes, scientifiques, nobles, diplomates et membres de la royauté. Elle participa au développement et à la dissémination du néoclassicisme au moment même de son efflorescence. Elle créa ses Attitudes, une performance répondant au goût de son époque pour le classicisme, qui fut admirée et imitée à travers l’Europe et qui inspira des générations d’interprètes féminines. Elle apprit à danser la tarentelle et l’introduisit dans les salons aristocratiques. Elle influença un réseau de femmes s’étendant de Paris à Saint-Pétersbourg et incluant Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Germaine de Staël et Juliette Récamier. Modèle hors pair, elle inspira plusieurs artistes pour la production d’œuvres qu’ils reconnurent comme parmi leurs meilleures. Elle fut représentée par les plus grands artistes de son temps, dont Angelica Kauffman, Benjamin West, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, George Romney, James Gillray, Joseph Nollekens, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence et Thomas Rowlandson. Elle bouscula, de façon répétée, les limites et mœurs sociales. Néanmoins, Emma ne tentait pas de présenter une identité cohérente, unifiée, polie. Au contraire, elle était un kaléidoscope de multiples « sois » qu’elle gardait actifs et en dialogue les uns avec les autres, réarrangeant continuellement ses facettes afin de pouvoir simultanément s’exprimer pleinement et présenter aux autres ce qu’ils voulaient voir.

Fast Fractal Coding Method for the Detection of Microcalcification in Mammograms

The presence of microcalcifications in mammograms can be considered as an early indication of breast cancer. A fastfractal block coding method to model the mammograms fordetecting the presence of microcalcifications is presented in this paper. The conventional fractal image coding method takes enormous amount of time during the fractal block encoding.procedure. In the proposed method, the image is divided intoshade and non shade blocks based on the dynamic range, andonly non shade blocks are encoded using the fractal encodingtechnique. Since the number of image blocks is considerablyreduced in the matching domain search pool, a saving of97.996% of the encoding time is obtained as compared to theconventional fractal coding method, for modeling mammograms.The above developed mammograms are used for detectingmicrocalcifications and a diagnostic efficiency of 85.7% isobtained for the 28 mammograms used.

A New Fast Fractal Modeling Approach for the Detection of Microcalcifications in Mammograms

In this paper, a novel fast method for modeling mammograms by deterministic fractal coding approach to detect the presence of microcalcifications, which are early signs of breast cancer, is presented. The modeled mammogram obtained using fractal encoding method is visually similar to the original image containing microcalcifications, and therefore, when it is taken out from the original mammogram, the presence of microcalcifications can be enhanced. The limitation of fractal image modeling is the tremendous time required for encoding. In the present work, instead of searching for a matching domain in the entire domain pool of the image, three methods based on mean and variance, dynamic range of the image blocks, and mass center features are used. This reduced the encoding time by a factor of 3, 89, and 13, respectively, in the three methods with respect to the conventional fractal image coding method with quad tree partitioning. The mammograms obtained from The Mammographic Image Analysis Society database (ground truth available) gave a total detection score of 87.6%, 87.6%, 90.5%, and 87.6%, for the conventional and the proposed three methods, respectively.

The Use of Grouping in Visual Object Recognition.

The report describes a recognition system called GROPER, which performs grouping by using distance and relative orientation constraints that estimate the likelihood of different edges in an image coming from the same object. The thesis presents both a theoretical analysis of the grouping problem and a practical implementation of a grouping system. GROPER also uses an indexing module to allow it to make use of knowledge of different objects, any of which might appear in an image. We test GROPER by comparing it to a similar recognition system that does not use grouping.

The future of veterinarians in dairy herd health management

The future of the Veterinary Practice in Dairy Health Management has changed and will change more drastically from our point of view in the next years. The consumer’s pressure and the Media are more and more concerned about animal welfare, traceability of animal products and safety of products of animal origin. On the other hand the Farmers in Europe have to produce under strong rules (competing with other countries outside Europe), which are normally very expensive to put in practice, and the veterinarians should adapt their knowledge to the new challenges, because without their work and cooperation, dairy farming will have no future. In that sense, the old veterinary practice has to go in other ways, otherwise the Veterinarians will loose clients and the animal population in Europe will be reduced. The Dairy farmers will ask for support in other areas besides clinical: efficacy, management, welfare, profitability, nutrition, prophylaxis, economics, reproduction, environmental protection, grassland management, etc. Cattle practitioners should be able to give answers in several subjects and this sets the challenge to our profession - Veterinary preparation has to be very strong in single animal species, particularly in Dairy or beef cows. The cattle practitioner has to look beyond, but he should never forget that “the single animal” has to be looked at as one unit of the herd, which means that without a very good knowledge of the single animal he will be insufficiently prepared to solve herd problems, and the Herd is the sum of several animals. We all know that very often one single animal allows us to implement herd strategies and develop prophylactic programs. We are convinced that the veterinary profession, and in our case the Cattle Medicine should have the ability to evolve, otherwise the Veterinarian as we know him will miss the train in the next years.

Using continuous ground-based radar and lidar measurements for evaluating the representation of clouds in four operational models

The ability of four operational weather forecast models [ECMWF, Action de Recherche Petite Echelle Grande Echelle model (ARPEGE), Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO), and Met Office] to generate a cloud at the right location and time (the cloud frequency of occurrence) is assessed in the present paper using a two-year time series of observations collected by profiling ground-based active remote sensors (cloud radar and lidar) located at three different sites in western Europe (Cabauw. Netherlands; Chilbolton, United Kingdom; and Palaiseau, France). Particular attention is given to potential biases that may arise from instrumentation differences (especially sensitivity) from one site to another and intermittent sampling. In a second step the statistical properties of the cloud variables involved in most advanced cloud schemes of numerical weather forecast models (ice water content and cloud fraction) are characterized and compared with their counterparts in the models. The two years of observations are first considered as a whole in order to evaluate the accuracy of the statistical representation of the cloud variables in each model. It is shown that all models tend to produce too many high-level clouds, with too-high cloud fraction and ice water content. The midlevel and low-level cloud occurrence is also generally overestimated, with too-low cloud fraction but a correct ice water content. The dataset is then divided into seasons to evaluate the potential of the models to generate different cloud situations in response to different large-scale forcings. Strong variations in cloud occurrence are found in the observations from one season to the same season the following year as well as in the seasonal cycle. Overall, the model biases observed using the whole dataset are still found at seasonal scale, but the models generally manage to well reproduce the observed seasonal variations in cloud occurrence. Overall, models do not generate the same cloud fraction distributions and these distributions do not agree with the observations. Another general conclusion is that the use of continuous ground-based radar and lidar observations is definitely a powerful tool for evaluating model cloud schemes and for a responsive assessment of the benefit achieved by changing or tuning a model cloud

The impact of uncertainty in satellite data on the assessment of flood inundation models

The performance of flood inundation models is often assessed using satellite observed data; however these data have inherent uncertainty. In this study we assess the impact of this uncertainty when calibrating a flood inundation model (LISFLOOD-FP) for a flood event in December 2006 on the River Dee, North Wales, UK. The flood extent is delineated from an ERS-2 SAR image of the event using an active contour model (snake), and water levels at the flood margin calculated through intersection of the shoreline vector with LiDAR topographic data. Gauged water levels are used to create a reference water surface slope for comparison with the satellite-derived water levels. Residuals between the satellite observed data points and those from the reference line are spatially clustered into groups of similar values. We show that model calibration achieved using pattern matching of observed and predicted flood extent is negatively influenced by this spatial dependency in the data. By contrast, model calibration using water elevations produces realistic calibrated optimum friction parameters even when spatial dependency is present. To test the impact of removing spatial dependency a new method of evaluating flood inundation model performance is developed by using multiple random subsamples of the water surface elevation data points. By testing for spatial dependency using Moran’s I, multiple subsamples of water elevations that have no significant spatial dependency are selected. The model is then calibrated against these data and the results averaged. This gives a near identical result to calibration using spatially dependent data, but has the advantage of being a statistically robust assessment of model performance in which we can have more confidence. Moreover, by using the variations found in the subsamples of the observed data it is possible to assess the effects of observational uncertainty on the assessment of flooding risk.

The risks of investing in the real estate markets of the asian region

The Asian region has become a focus of attention for investors in recent years. Due to the strong economic performance of the region, the higher expected returns in the area compared with Europe and the USA and the additional diversification benefits investment in the region would offer. Nonetheless many investors have doubts about the prudence of investing in such areas. In particular it may be felt that the expected returns offered in the countries of the Asian region are not sufficient to compensate investors for the increased risks of investing in such markets. These risks can be categorised into under four headings: investment risk, currency risk, political risk, and institutional risk. This paper analyses each of these risks in turn to see if they are sufficiently large to deter real estate investment in the region in general or in a particular country.