A comparison of three methods for detecting KRAS mutations in formalin-fixed colorectal cancer specimens.

BACKGROUND: KRAS mutation testing is required to select patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) to receive anti-epidermal growth factor receptor antibodies, but the optimal KRAS mutation test method is uncertain. METHODS: We conducted a two-site comparison of two commercial KRAS mutation kits - the cobas KRAS Mutation Test and the Qiagen therascreen KRAS Kit - and Sanger sequencing. A panel of 120 CRC specimens was tested with all three methods. The agreement between the cobas test and each of the other methods was assessed. Specimens with discordant results were subjected to quantitative massively parallel pyrosequencing (MPP). DNA blends were tested to determine detection rates at 5% mutant alleles. RESULTS: Reproducibility of the cobas test between sites was 98%. Six mutations were detected by cobas that were not detected by Sanger, and five were confirmed by MPP. The cobas test detected eight mutations which were not detected by the therascreen test, and seven were confirmed by MPP. Detection rates with 5% mutant DNA blends were 100% for the cobas and therascreen tests and 19% for Sanger. CONCLUSION: The cobas test was reproducible between sites, and detected several mutations that were not detected by the therascreen test or Sanger. Sanger sequencing had poor sensitivity for low levels of mutation.

Personal and Public Involvement Consultation Scheme (PDF 149KB)

The current structure of the health and social care system in Northern Ireland has its origins in the Review of Public Administration (RPA) which was initiated by the Northern Ireland Executive in June 2002. The purpose of RPA was to review Northern Ireland’s system of public administration with a view to putting in place a modern, citizen-centred, accountable and high quality system of public administration. The structure was designed to be more streamlined and accountable and aimed at maximising resources for front-line services and ensuring that people have access to high quality health and social care. Another key feature is the placement of public health and wellbeing firmly at the centre of the system, with a greater emphasis on prevention and support for vulnerable people to live independently in the community for as long as possible. ��

U.S. Highway 20 Corridor Development Study, Task A Report, 1992

This Task A Report summarizes the initial activities of the U.S. 20 Corridor Development Study. Task A constitutes a review of the portion of existing U.S. 20 from the Nebraska state line on the south side of Sioux City to the junction with U.S. 169 south of Ft. Dodge. �� Preliminary study findings for this 119 mile corridor are summarized below.

Scalable unstructured mesh decomposition

As the efficiency of parallel software increases it is becoming common to measure near linear speedup for many applications. For a problem size N on P processors then with software running at O(N=P ) the performance restrictions due to file i/o systems and mesh decomposition running at O(N) become increasingly apparent especially for large P . For distributed memory parallel systems an additional limit to scalability results from the finite memory size available for i/o scatter/gather operations. Simple strategies developed to address the scalability of scatter/gather operations for unstructured mesh based applications have been extended to provide scalable mesh decomposition through the development of a parallel graph partitioning code, JOSTLE [8]. The focus of this work is directed towards the development of generic strategies that can be incorporated into the Computer Aided Parallelisation Tools (CAPTools) project.

Development and characterization of Poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) platforms for bone tissue engineering

The development of scaffolds based on biomaterials is a promising strategy for Tissue Engineering and cellular regeneration. This work focuses on Bone Tissue Engineering, the aim is to develop electrically tailored biomaterials with different crystalline and electric features, and study their impacts onto cell biological behavior, so as to predict the materials output in the enhancement of bone tissue regeneration. It is accepted that bone exhibits piezoelectricity, a property that has been proved to be involved in bone growth/repair mechanism regulation. In addition electrical stimulations have been proved to influence bone growth and repair. Piezoelectric materials are therefore widely investigated for a potential use in bone tissue engineering. The main goal is the development of novel strategies to produce and employ piezoelectric biomaterials, with detailed knowledge of mechanisms involved in cell-material interaction. In the current work, poly (L-lactic) acid (PLLA), a synthetic semi-crystalline polymer, exhibiting biodegradibility, biocompatibility and piezoelectricity is studied and proposed as a promoter of enhanced tissue regeneration. PLLA has already been approved for implantation in human body by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and at the moment it is being used in several clinical strategies. The present study consists of first preparing films with different degrees of crystallinity and characterizing these PLLA films, in terms of surface and structural properties, and subsequently assessing the behavior of cells in terms of viability, proliferation, morphology and mineralization for each PLLA configuration. PLLA films were prepared using the solvent cast technique and submitted to different thermal treatments in order to obtain different degrees of crystallinity. Those platforms were then electrically poled, positively and negatively, by corona discharge in order to tailor their electrical properties. The cellular assays were conducted by using two different osteoblast cell lines grown directly onto the PLLA films:Human osteoblast Hob, a primary cell culture and Human osteosarcoma MG-63 cell line. This thesis gives also a comprehensive introduction to the area of Bone Tissue Engineering and provides a review of the work done in this field in the past until today, in that same field, including the one related with bone���s piezoelectricity. Then the experimental part deals with the effects of the crystallinity degrees and of the polarization in terms of surface properties and cellular bio assays. Three different degrees of crystallinity, and three different polarization conditions were prepared; which results in 9 different configurations under investigation.

A visual system for distributed mosaics using an auvs fleet

The use of teams of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for visual inspection tasks is a promising robotic field. The images captured by different robots can be also to aid in the localization/navigation of the fleet. In a previous work, a distributed localization system was presented based on the use of Augmented States Kalman Filter through the visual maps obtained by the fleet. In this context, this paper details a system for on-line construction of visual maps and its use to aid the localization and navigation of the robots. Different aspects related to the capture, treatment and construction of mosaics by fleets of robots are presented. The developed system can be executed on-line on different robotic platforms. The paper is concluded with a series of tests and analyses aiming at to system validation.

Redes de conversa����o como possibilidade de forma����o do professor tutor virtual na media����o pedag��gica da educa����o profissional a dist��ncia

A educa����o a dist��ncia apoiada pelos meios de comunica����o digital ampliou as possibilidades de intera����o, flexibilizando o processo de media����o pedag��gica no tempo e no espa��o. Nessa perspectiva, a educa����o profissional democratizou seu acesso, na qual os conhecimentos de n��vel t��cnico s��o customizados em um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA) para serem mediados a dist��ncia. Esta tese, apresentada na forma de artigos, problematiza o processo de media����o pedag��gica realizado pelo professor tutor virtual na Rede e-Tec Brasil do Instituto Federal de Educa����o, Ci��ncia e Tecnologia Sul-rio-grandense (IFSul) Campus Visconde da Gra��a (CAVG). Nesse modelo de ensino, o professor tutor virtual �� contratado para atuar, pelo per��odo de dois anos, em todas as disciplinas curriculares de um curso t��cnico. Se, por um lado, isso permite-lhe conhecer a realidade de seus alunos; por outro, exige-lhe um esfor��o pedag��gico de apropria����o e media����o dos conte��dos espec��ficos nas diversas disciplinas que integram os curr��culos de cada curso. A pesquisa buscou conhecer como o professor tutor virtual apropria-se dos conhecimentos espec��ficos nos cursos t��cnicos para medi��-los pedagogicamente com os alunos. Apresentamos, como hip��tese explicativa neste estudo, que �� na conviv��ncia com o professor pesquisador que o professor tutor virtual encontra a possibilidade de se apropriar dos conhecimentos curriculares para poder medi��-los pedagogicamente com os alunos. Para sustentar teoricamente nossas proposi����es na experi��ncia vivida, estabelecemos uma rede de conversa����o com os autores Humberto Maturana, Pierre L��vy, Lee Shulman e Maurice Tardif, por meio dos conceitos: cultura em redes de conversa����o; intelig��ncia coletiva; conhecimento pedag��gico do conte��do; e forma����o profissional docente. Como procedimento metodol��gico, encontramos na t��cnica do Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC), de Lef��vre e Lef��vre, uma estrat��gia de abordagem qualitativa para analisar as recorr��ncias encontradas nos discursos dos professores tutores virtuais. O estudo aponta que uma rede de conversa����o recursiva entre o professor pesquisador e o professor tutor virtual possibilita a apropria����o de conhecimentos t��cnicos e espec��ficos necess��rios ao processo de media����o pedag��gica com os estudantes. Essa conviv��ncia, no caminho da constitui����o de um coletivo inteligente, favorece o trabalho colaborativo no ambiente da tutoria, contribuindo para profissionalizar o processo de media����o pedag��gica na educa����o profissional a dist��ncia do IFSul CAVG. Supported by digital media, distance learning has increased the possibilities of interaction, easing the process of pedagogical mediation in time and space. From this perspective, the access to professional education has been democratized: technical knowledge is customized in a Learning Managing System and later delivered by means of mediated distance education courses. Structured in a sequence of articles, this dissertation addresses the problem of the pedagogical mediation process performed by on-line tutor teachers at Rede e-Tec Brasil of the Instituto Federal Sul- rio-grandense (IF-Sul), Campus Visconde da Gra��a (CAVG). This model of education establishes that on-line tutor teachers are hired to work with all the curriculum courses of a technical program for two years. If, on the hand, it allows these teachers to know the reality of their students well, on the other hand it demands them a pedagogical effort of appropriation and mediation of the specific contents guiding the various courses that comprise the curriculum of each program. This research aimed to find out how on-line tutor teachers appropriate expertise from technical programs to mediate it with their students in a pedagogical way. The explanatory hypothesis given is that by working together and sharing experience with the teacher/researcher, on-line tutor teachers will be able to appropriate of curricular knowledge and pedagogically mediate it with their students afterwards. To support our theoretical propositions, a network of conversation was established with authors like Humberto Maturana, Pierre L��vy, Lee Shulman, and Maurice Tardif through the concepts of culture in networks of conversation, collective intelligence, pedagogical content knowledge, and teacher training. As a methodological procedure, the technique of the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD), by Lef��vre and Lef��vre, was found to offer a strategy of qualitative approach to analyze the recurrences seen in the speech of on-line tutor teachers. The study shows that a recursive network of conversation between the teacher/researcher and the on-line tutor teacher enables the appropriation of specific and technical knowledge required for the process of pedagogical mediation with students. The experience of sharing a consensual professional relationship, in which one respects and accepts the other as a way of establishing a collective intelligence, encourages collaborative work in the tutoring environment, helping professionalize the process of pedagogical mediation in distance professional education at IFSul CAVG.

Spatial and temporal interaction between sediment and microphytobenthos in a temperate estuarine macro-intertidal bay

Intertidal flats of the estuarine macro-intertidal Baie des Veys (France) were investigated to identify spatial features of sediment and microphytobenthos (MPB) in April 2003. Gradients occurred within the domain, and patches were identified close to vegetated areas or within the oyster-farming areas where calm physical conditions and biodeposition altered the sediment and MPB landscapes. Spatial patterns of chl a content were explained primarily by the influence of sediment features, while bed elevation and compaction brought only minor insights into MPB distribution regulation. The smaller size of MPB patches compared to silt patches revealed the interplay between physical structure defining the sediment landscape, the biotic patches that they contain, and that median grain-size is the most important parameter in explaining the spatial pattern of MPB. Small-scale temporal dynamics of sediment chl a content and grain-size distribution were surveyed in parallel during 2 periods of 14 d to detect tidal and seasonal variations. Our results showed a weak relationship between mud fraction and MPB biomass in March, and this relationship fully disappeared in July. Tidal exposure was the most important parameter in explaining the summer temporal dynamics of MPB. This study reveals the general importance of bed elevation and tidal exposure in muddy habitats and that silt content was a prime governing physical factor in winter. Biostabilisation processes seemed to behave only as secondary factors that could only amplify the initial silt accumulation in summer rather than primary factors explaining spatial or long-term trends of sediment changes.

���PROSPERING BECAUSE THAT���S ITS HISTORY���: BLACK RESILIENCE AND HONORS DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION: MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY AND THE STATE OF MARYLAND, 1867-1988

This study explores the origins and development of honors education at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), Morgan State University, within the context of the Maryland higher education system. During the last decades, public and private institutions have invested in honors experiences for their high-ability students. These programs have become recruitment magnets while also raising institutional academic profiles, justifying additional campus resources. The history of higher education reveals simultaneous narratives such as the tension of post-desegregated Black colleges facing uncertain futures; and the progress of the rise and popularity of collegiate honors programs. Both accounts contribute to tracing seemingly parallel histories in higher education that speaks to the development of honors education at HBCUs. While the extant literature on honors development at Historically White Institutions (HWIs) of higher education has gradually emerged, our understanding of activity at HBCUs is spotty at best. One connection of these two phenomena is the development of honors programs at HBCUs. Using Morgan State University, I examine the role and purpose of honors education at a public HBCU through archival materials and oral histories. Major unexpected findings that constructed this historical narrative beyond its original scope were the impact of the 1935/6 Murray v Pearson, the first higher education desegregation case. Other emerging themes were Morgan���s decades-long efforts to resist state control of its governance, Maryland���s misuse of Morrill Act funds, and the border state���s resistance to desegregation. Also, the broader histories of Black education, racism, and Black citizenship from Dred Scott and Plessy, the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to Brown, inform this study. As themes are threaded together, Critical Race Theory provides the framework for understanding the emerging themes. In the immediate wake of the post-desegregation era, HBCUs had to address future challenges such as purpose and mission. Competing with HWIs for high-achieving Black students was one of the unanticipated consequences of the Brown decision. Often marginalized from higher education research literature, this study will broaden the research repository of honors education by documenting HBCU contributions despite a challenging landscape.

O desenvolvimento e integra����o de estrat��gias de c��lculo mental no 5.�� ano de escolaridade

Relat��rio de est��gio apresentado �� Escola Superior de Educa����o de Lisboa para obten����o de grau de mestre em Ensino do 1.�� e 2.�� Ciclo do Ensino B��sico

Avalia����o do potencial cancerig��nico de microcistinas (cianotoxinas)

Tese de doutoramento em Farm��cia (Toxicologia), apresentada �� Faculdade de Farm��cia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2009.

Sistema de r��dio comunica����es para UAV

Os ve��culos a��reos n��o tripulados, mais conhecidos por drones, t��m tomado atualmente uma posi����o importante na sociedade. Para al��m da sua import��ncia no meio militar, t��m sido cada vez mais utilizados para meios comerciais uma vez que o seu custo �� relativamente baixo e podem ser utilizados para in��meras aplica����es. Devido �� sua import��ncia em miss��es de salvamento, reconhecimento de terreno e at�� mesmo de ataque, �� fundamental uma boa comunica����o entre a aeronave e a esta����o terrestre. Sendo a antena um dos principais elementos do sistema de comunica����o, esta disserta����o centrou-se no desenvolvimento de uma agregado de antenas a operar �� frequ��ncia de 2.45GHz. Pretende-se que este agregado apresente polariza����o circular direita bem como um ganho e largura de banda elevados. Com o objetivo de se obter uma comunica����o mais eficiente entre a aeronave e a esta����o terrestre, o agregado permitir�� o redirecionamento do feixe principal do diagrama de radia����o. Para tal, ser��o analisadas tr��s abordagens distintas recorrendo a linhas de atraso e switches, permitindo que seja efetuado beamforming.

A sustenabilidade nas organiza����es: o papel e a import��ncia da auditoria "verde" aos relat��rios - Para uma auditoria integrada em linha com o relat��rio ��nico

Mestrado em Auditoria

Computational modeling of laser-induced delamination testing of thin films

Thin film adhesion often determines microelectronic device reliability and it is therefore essential to have experimental techniques that accurately and efficiently characterize it. Laser-induced delamination is a novel technique that uses laser-generated stress waves to load thin films at high strain rates and extract the fracture toughness of the film/substrate interface. The effectiveness of the technique in measuring the interface properties of metallic films has been documented in previous studies. The objective of the current effort is to model the effect of residual stresses on the dynamic delamination of thin films. Residual stresses can be high enough to affect the crack advance and the mode mixity of the delimitation event, and must therefore be adequately modeled to make accurate and repeatable predictions of fracture toughness. The equivalent axial force and bending moment generated by the residual stresses are included in a dynamic, nonlinear finite element model of the delaminating film, and the impact of residual stresses on the final extent of the interfacial crack, the relative contribution of shear failure, and the deformed shape of the delaminated film is studied in detail. Another objective of the study is to develop techniques to address issues related to the testing of polymeric films. These type of films adhere well to silicon and the resulting crack advance is often much smaller than for metallic films, making the extraction of the interface fracture toughness more difficult. The use of an inertial layer which enhances the amount of kinetic energy trapped in the film and thus the crack advance is examined. It is determined that the inertial layer does improve the crack advance, although in a relatively limited fashion. The high interface toughness of polymer films often causes the film to fail cohesively when the crack front leaves the weakly bonded region and enters the strong interface. The use of a tapered pre-crack region that provides a more gradual transition to the strong interface is examined. The tapered triangular pre-crack geometry is found to be effective in reducing the stresses induced thereby making it an attractive option. We conclude by studying the impact of modifying the pre-crack geometry to enable the testing of multiple polymer films.

A imprensa como fonte para o ensino e a pesquisa em hist��ria: o caso de um jornal rio-grandino

Esta disserta����o analisa uma das etapas da evolu����o do jornal Artista, publicado na cidade do Rio Grande, enfocando a sua g��nese, transcorrida entre 1862 e 1863. Nessa ��poca o peri��dico era uma pequena publica����o semanal, voltada essencialmente aos art��fices, de modo particular, e aos trabalhadores em geral, desenvolvendo uma constru����o discursiva espec��fica que visava atingir tal p��blico leitor. Ao estudar tal per��odo, este trabalho busca abordar o peri��dico como um documento essencial para promover a pesquisa hist��rica e a partir dela desenvolver estrat��gias para o ensino da Hist��ria. Nessa linha, o objetivo geral da disserta����o �� o de estudar a imprensa como importante fonte para o ensino e a pesquisa em Hist��ria, e os objetivos espec��ficos s��o os de analisar o ano inicial de exist��ncia do Artista como um t��pico representante da pequena imprensa; estudar os mais importantes componentes da constru����o discursiva do jornal e suas principais caracter��sticas editoriais; destacar conte��dos das p��ginas do peri��dico prop��cios �� utiliza����o em sala de aula; estabelecer estrat��gias de ensino usando as informa����es do Artista como fonte para o aprendizado da Hist��ria; e promover, atrav��s da pesquisa-a����o, estudos de caso acerca da aplicabilidade de textos do Artista como ferramentas para promover o ensino da Hist��ria.