Maintaining the correctness of transactional memory programs

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Informática

Lightweight monitoring of transactional memory programs

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Country-of-origin effect applied to talent: Portugal abroad

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Explorations in the interior of the Labrador peninsula, the country of the Montagnais and Nasquapee Indians. By Henry Youle Hind...

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Role of the neurotransmitters dopamine and acetylcholine during the interaction of working memory and attention

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Naturwiss., Diss., 2015

A test of long memory hypothesis based on self-similarity

This paper develops a new test of true versus spurious long memory, based on log-periodogram estimation of the long memory parameter using skip-sampled data. A correction factor is derived to overcome the bias in this estimator due to aliasing. The procedure is designed to be used in the context of a conventional test of significance of the long memory parameter, and composite test procedure described that has the properties of known asymptotic size and consistency. The test is implemented using the bootstrap, with the distribution under the null hypothesis being approximated using a dependent-sample bootstrap technique to approximate short-run dependence following fractional differencing. The properties of the test are investigated in a set of Monte Carlo experiments. The procedure is illustrated by applications to exchange rate volatility and dividend growth series.

Intradermal vaccination of adults with three low doses (2 µg) of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine. II. Persistence of immunity and induction of immunologic memory

Of the 110 dentists who had presented seroconversion 50 days after the intradermal application of three 2 µg doses of the Belgian recombinant vaccine against hepatitis B (HB), administered eight years before at an interval of one month between the 1st and 2nd doses and of five months between the 2nd and 3rd doses, 51 were included for the assessment of the persistence of immunity. None of the dentists had hepatitis or had received HB vaccine during this period. All subjects were submitted to serological tests for the detection of the following markers of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection: HBsAg, anti-HBc, HBeAg, anti-HBe, and anti-HBs, with no HBsAg, anti-HBc, HBeAg or anti-HBe being detected. A microparticle enzyme immunoassay (MEIA) revealed the presence of anti-HBs at protective titers (> 10 mIU/ml) in 42 dentists (82.4%), with the anti-HBs titer being higher than 100 mIU/ml in 36 of them (70.6%) (good responders), between 10 and 100 mIU/ml in 6 (11.8%) (poor responders), and lower than 10 mIU/ml in 9 (17.6%) (non-responders). According to clinical data and serological tests, none of the dentists had presented disease or latent HBV infection during the eight years following the first vaccination. A 2 µg booster dose was administered intradermally to eight dentists with anti-HBs titers lower than 10 mIU/ml (non-responders) and to six dentists with titers ranging from 10 to 100 mIU/ml (poor responders); the determination of anti-HBs one month later demonstrated the occurrence of seroconversion in the eight non-responders and an increase in anti-HBs titer in the six poor responders. In summary, the present results demonstrated the prolonged persistence of protection against HBV infection and the development of immunologic memory provided by vaccination against HB - with intra-dermal application of three 2 µg doses of the Belgian recombinant vaccine at 0, 1, and 6 months - carried out eight years before in 51 dentists.

Alcohol-related and hepatocellular cancer deaths by country of birth in England and Wales: analysis of mortality and census data.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of and mortality from alcohol-related conditions, liver disease and hepatocellular cancer (HCC) are increasing in the UK. We compared mortality rates by country of birth to explore potential inequalities and inform clinical and preventive care. DESIGN: Analysis of mortality for people aged 20 years and over using the 2001 Census data and death data from 1999 and 2001-2003. SETTING: England and Wales. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for alcohol-related deaths and HCC. RESULTS: Mortality from alcohol-related deaths (23 502 deaths) was particularly high for people born in Ireland (SMR for men [M]: 236, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 219-254; SMR for women [F]: 212, 95% CI: 191-235) and Scotland (SMR-M: 187, CI: 173-213; SMR-F 182, CI: 163-205) and men born in India (SMR-M: 161, CI: 144-181). Low alcohol-related mortality was found in women born in other countries and men born in Bangladesh, Middle East, West Africa, Pakistan, China and Hong Kong, and the West Indies. Similar mortality patterns were observed by country of birth for alcoholic liver disease and other liver diseases. Mortality from HCC (8266 deaths) was particularly high for people born in Bangladesh (SMR-M: 523, CI: 380-701; SMR-F: 319, CI: 146-605), China and Hong Kong (SMR-M: 492, CI: 168-667; SMR-F: 323, CI: 184-524), West Africa (SMR-M: 440, CI, 308-609; SMR-F: 319, CI: 165-557) and Pakistan (SMR-M: 216, CI: 113-287; SMR-F: 215, CI: 133-319). CONCLUSIONS: These findings show persistent differences in mortality by country of birth for both alcohol-related and HCC deaths and have important clinical and public health implications. New policy, research and practical action are required to address these differences.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Declining stroke and myocardial infarction mortality between 1989 and 2010 in a country of the African region.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In low- and middle-income countries, the total burden of cardiovascular diseases is expected to increase due to demographic and epidemiological transitions. However, data on cause-specific mortality are lacking in sub-Saharan Africa. Seychelles is one of the few countries in the region where all deaths are registered and medically certified. In this study, we examine trends in mortality for stroke and myocardial infarction (MI) between 1989 and 2010. METHODS: Based on vital statistics, we ascertained stroke and MI as the cause of death if appearing in any of the 4 fields for immediate, intermediate, underlying, and contributory causes in death certificates. RESULTS: Mortality rates (per 100 000, age-standardized to World Health Organization standard population) decreased from 1669/710 (men/women) in 1989 to 1991 to 1113/535 in 2008-10 for all causes, from 250/140 to 141/86 for stroke, and from 117/51 to 59/24 for MI, corresponding to proportionate decreases of 33%/25% for all-cause mortality, 44%/39% for stroke, and 50%/53% for MI over 22 years. The absolute number of stroke and MI deaths did not increase over time. In 2008 to 2010, the median age of death was 65/78 years (men/women) for all causes, 68/78 for stroke, and 66/73 for MI. CONCLUSIONS: Between 1989 and 2010, age-standardized stroke and MI mortality decreased markedly and more rapidly than all-cause mortality. The absolute number of cardiovascular disease deaths did not increase over time because the impact of population aging was fully compensated by the decline in cardiovascular disease mortality. Stroke mortality remained high, emphasizing the need to strengthen cardiovascular disease prevention and control.

Distribution of hospital admissions in a middle-income country of the African region

Introduction: Few studies have reported the distribution of all hospital admissions at the entire country level in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). We examined this question in Seychelles, a rapidly developing small island state in the Africa region, in which access to health care is provided free of charge to all inhabitants through a national health system and all hospital admissions are routinely registered. Methods: Based on all admissions to all hospitals in Seychelles in 2005-2008, we calculated the distribution of hospital admissions, age at admission, length of stay and bed occupancy (i.e. cumulated number of patients * number of days spent in all hospitals) according to both hospital departments and broad causes of diseases (using codes of the ICD-10 classification of diseases). Results: Bed occupancy was largest in the surgical wards (36.7% of all days spent in all hospitals), followed by the medical wards (24.3%), gynecology/obstetrics wards (18.4%), pediatric wards (11.2%), and psychiatric wards (7.2%). According to broad causes of diseases/conditions, bed occupancy was highest for obstetrics/gynecology conditions (19.9% of all days spent at hospital), mental diseases (8.6%), cardiovascular diseases (8.1%), upper aerodigestive/pulmonary diseases (8%), infectious/parasitic diseases (8%), gastrointestinal diseases (7.2%), and urogenital diseases (6.7%). Adjusted to 100'000 population, 153 hospital beds are needed every day, including 31 for obstetrics/gynecologic conditions, 13 for mental diseases, 12 for cardiovascular diseases, 12 for upper aerodigestive diseases, 12 for infectious/parasitic diseases, and 11 for gastrointestinal diseases. Conclusion: Our findings give a good indication of the overall distribution of admissions according to both hospital departments and broad causes of diseases in a middle-income country. These findings provide important information for health care planning at the national level

Prevalence of overweight and obesity among migrants in Switzerland: association with country of origin.

Migrants tend to present higher overweight and obesity levels, but whether this relationship applies to all nationalities has seldom been studied. The present study aimed to assess the prevalence of overweight and obesity according to nationality in adults. Cross-sectional population-based samples. Five-year nationwide interview surveys (Swiss Health Surveys - SHS) from 1992 to 2007 (n 63 766) and a local examination survey (CoLaus Study in Lausanne 2004-2006, n 6743). Participants were separated into Swiss, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish nationals, those from the former Republic of Yugoslavia and from other European and other countries. Compared with Swiss nationals, German and French nationals presented a lower prevalence of overweight and obesity, whereas nationals from Italy, Spain, Portugal and the former Republic of Yugoslavia presented higher levels. Adjusting the SHS data for age, gender, education, smoking, leisure-time physical activity and survey year, a lower risk for overweight and obesity was found for German (OR = 0·80, 95 % CI 0·70, 0·92) and French (OR = 0·74, 95 % CI 0·61, 0·89) nationals, whereas higher risks were found for participants from Italy (OR = 1·45, 95 % CI 1·33, 1·58), Spain (OR = 1·36, 95 % CI 1·15, 1·61), Portugal (OR = 1·25, 95 % CI 1·06, 1·47) and the former Republic of Yugoslavia (OR = 1·98, 95 % CI 1·69, 2·32). Similar findings were observed in the CoLaus Study for Italian (OR = 1·63, 95 % CI 1·29, 2·06), Spanish (OR = 1·54, 95 % CI 1·17, 2·04) and Portuguese (OR = 1·49, 95 % CI 1·16, 1·91) participants and for those from the former Republic of Yugoslavia (OR = 5·34, 95 % CI 3·00, 9·50). Overweight and obesity are unevenly distributed among migrants in Switzerland. Migrants from Southern Europe and from the former Republic of Yugoslavia present higher prevalence rates. This suggests that preventive messages should be tailored to these specific populations.

What is what?: A simple time-domain test of long-memory vs. structural breaks

This paper proposes a new time-domain test of a process being I(d), 0 < d = 1, under the null, against the alternative of being I(0) with deterministic components subject to structural breaks at known or unknown dates, with the goal of disentangling the existing identification issue between long-memory and structural breaks. Denoting by AB(t) the different types of structural breaks in the deterministic components of a time series considered by Perron (1989), the test statistic proposed here is based on the t-ratio (or the infimum of a sequence of t-ratios) of the estimated coefficient on yt-1 in an OLS regression of ?dyt on a simple transformation of the above-mentioned deterministic components and yt-1, possibly augmented by a suitable number of lags of ?dyt to account for serial correlation in the error terms. The case where d = 1 coincides with the Perron (1989) or the Zivot and Andrews (1992) approaches if the break date is known or unknown, respectively. The statistic is labelled as the SB-FDF (Structural Break-Fractional Dickey- Fuller) test, since it is based on the same principles as the well-known Dickey-Fuller unit root test. Both its asymptotic behavior and finite sample properties are analyzed, and two empirical applications are provided.

Absence of snapshot memory of the target view interferes with place navigation learning by rats in the water maze

Contribution of visual and nonvisual mechanisms to spatial behavior of rats in the Morris water maze was studied with a computerized infrared tracking system, which switched off the room lights when the subject entered the inner circular area of the pool with an escape platform. Naive rats trained under light-dark conditions (L-D) found the escape platform more slowly than rats trained in permanent light (L). After group members were swapped, the L-pretrained rats found under L-D conditions the same target faster and eventually approached latencies attained during L navigation. Performance of L-D-trained rats deteriorated in permanent darkness (D) but improved with continued D training. Thus L-D navigation improves gradually by procedural learning (extrapolation of the start-target azimuth into the zero-visibility zone) but remains impaired by lack of immediate visual feedback rather than by absence of the snapshot memory of the target view.