Informa����es essenciais para a caracteriza����o de um sistema de an��lise em fluxo

Essential aspects for characterization of a flow-based analytical procedure or system are discussed in order to permit the composition of a checklist that will lead to a protocol for reporting results and systems in flow analysis. Aspects more related to chromatographic procedures are not considered. The intent is to present normalized proposals in the field of flow analysis for practitioners and developers.

Juvan kunnan j��tevedenpuhdistamon ymp��rist��asioiden parantaminen

Diplomity�� on osa Mikkelin ammattikorkeakoulun YTI:ss�� vuosina 2005 - 2008 toteutettua ���Yritysten ymp��rist��riskit��� EU-osarahoitteista hanketta. Ty��n tarkoituksena oli tunnistaa, arvioida ja luokittaa Etel��-Savossa, Juvalla toimivan yhdyskuntaj��tevedenpuhdistamon ymp��rist��riskit sek�� antaa neuvoja l��ytyneiden riskien hallintaan. J��tevedenpuhdistamon toiminnasta syntyv��t mahdolliset ymp��rist��riskitekij��t tunnistettiin kirjallisuusselvitysten sek�� haastattelujen avulla. Riskien tunnistamisen j��lkeen riskien kartoittamiseen, arviointiin ja luokittamiseen k��ytettiin osia eri riskianalyysimenetelmist��. Riskit jaettiin viiteen eri riskiluokkaan; vakavasta riskist�� merkityksett��m����n riskiin. Juvan kunnan j��tevedenpuhdistamolla esiintyi nelj��n pienimm��n riskiluokan riskej��, ja vakavia riskej�� ei kartoituksessa tullut esille lainkaan. Riskej�� arvioitiin niin sanotuissa normaalioloissa. Merkitt��vin yksitt��inen riskitekij�� j��tevedenpuhdistamolla oli haitallisen tai poikkeavan aineen kulkeutuminen j��teveden mukana puhdistamolle. T��m�� voisi heikent���� puhdistamon puhdistustulosta merkitt��v��sti. Kun laitosta ajetaan ymp��rist��luvassa asetettujen vaatimusten mukaisesti ja alueella sijaitsevat teollisuuslaitokset noudattavat heille annettuja m����r��yksi��, ei Juvan j��tevedenpuhdistamolta aiheudu merkitt��vi�� p����st��j�� maa-per����n tai pohjavesiin.

L��mp��kynttil��n palo-ominaisuuksiin vaikuttavien tekij��iden analytiikka: raaka-aineet, syd��nlanka, rakenne ja olosuhteet

Ty��n tavoitteena oli tutkia l��mp��kynttil��n palo-ominaisuuksiin vaikuttavia tekij��it��. Ty��n taustalla on yhteisty�� suomalaisen kynttil��valmistajan kanssa. Kynttil��valmistajan l��mp��kynttil��iss����n k��ytt��m��n raaka-aineen hinnan noustessa, on valmistaja kiinnostunut k��ytt��m����n edullisempia raaka-aineita. Palamisen kriteerit saavuttavan kynttil��n valmistaminen markkinoilla olevista uusista raaka-aineista on havaittu olevan haastavaa, ja vaatii edelleen kehitysty��t��. Teoriaosassa k��ytiin l��pi kynttil��nvalmistusta yleisesti, RAL-laatustandardin asettamat kriteerit l��mp��kynttil��lle, palamiseen vaikuttavia tekij��it�� sek�� ty��n kokeellisessa osassa k��ytettyjen analyysimenetelmien periaatteet. Ty��n kokeellisessa osassa tutkittiin erilaisten kynttil��raaka-aineiden koostumusta ja ominaisuuksia sek�� syd��nlankojen rakennetta. Lis��ksi tutkittiin, miten syd��nlangan sis��lt��mien s��ikeiden m����r��, eri raaka-aineiden seossuhteiden muutos sek�� j����hdytysl��mp��tilan muutos vaikuttavat l��mp��kynttil��n palo-ominaisuuksiin. Ty��ss�� my��s selvitettiin muutaman markkinoilla olevan kynttil��n raaka-ainekoostumus. Tutkimuksissa havaittiin, ett�� vaadittavan liekin korkeuden saavuttamiseksi viskositeetti on yksi raaka-aineen t��rkeimmist�� ominaisuuksista. Raaka-aineen viskositeetin kasvaessa tarvitaan paksumpi syd��nlanka. Raaka-aineen viskositeetin kasvaessa liekin korkeus ei aina pienene, koska liekin korkeuteen vaikuttaa my��s langalle tehty kemiallinen k��sittely. Mit�� korkeampi kynttil��n liekki on, sit�� suurempi on raaka-aineen kulutus eli palovuo ja t��ll��in liekin korkeus vaikuttaa my��s kynttil��n paloaikaan. Kokeissa havaittiin, ett�� liekin korkeuden ollessa vakio, palovuo oli korkein steariinilla. Steariinin j��lkeen tulivat palmuvaha ja parafiini. T��ll��in parafiinia tarvittiin v��hemm��n vastaavan paloajan saavuttamiseksi. Nopean j����hdytyksen havaittiin vaikuttavan palmuvahan palovuohon alentavasti, vaikka j����hdytystavalla ei ollut vaikutusta liekin korkeuteen.

Yrityksen vaihto-omaisuustavoitteet kunnossapidon n��k��kulmasta

Varaosavarastoihin kohdistuu entist�� enemm��n samoja vaihto-omaisuuden hallinnan vaatimuksia kuin raaka-aine ja lopputuotevarastoihin. T��m��n tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvitt����, miten kunnossapito-organisaatio voi vastata n��ihin tavoitteisiin heikent��m��tt�� koneiden ja laitteiden teknist�� k��ytett��vyytt�� ja lis����m��tt�� riski�� tuotannon menetyksille. Kirjallisuudessa on esitetty suuri joukko eri l��ht��kohdista kehitettyj�� analysointimalleja ja varastonpitopolitiikoita. Niiden avulla varaosia voidaan jakaa eri luokkiin ja niiden muodostamaa kokonaisuutta hallita. Teoriaosiossa on suoritettu kirjallisuuskatsaus k��ytetyimpiin menetelmiin ja tapaustutkimuksiin. Empiiriaosiossa menetelmien soveltuvuutta tutkittiin k��yt��nn��ss��. Tiedonkeruussa k��ytettiin case-yrityksen dokumentteja ja tietoj��rjestelmist�� saatavaa tietoa, sek�� havainnointia ja avoimia haastatteluita. Tutkimuksen tuloksena havaittiin merkitt��v�� kehityspotentiaali, jonka hy��dynt��miseksi saatiin m����ritelty�� tarpeisiin ja tutkimuksen l��ht��kohtana olleeseen viitekehykseen sopivat analysointi- ja varastonhallintamenetelm��t. Varastokokonaisuuden hallintapolitiikka ehdotettiin lis��tt��v��ksi osaksi laatuj��rjestelm����. Sen avulla menetelmien johdonmukainen noudattaminen ja ohjeiden ajan tasalla pit��minen toteutuvat my��s k��yt��nn��ss��.

Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston jauhatuslaboratorion ty��turvallisuusanalyysi

Suomen ty��turvallisuuslaki vaatii ty��nantajia selvitt��m����n ty��paikan turvallisuuden ja poistamaan tai pienent��m����n siell�� olevia vaaran riskej��. T��m�� laki rinnastaa opiskelijan ty��ntekij��ksi ja yliopiston ty��nantajaksi. Turvallisuuden kartoitukseen on olemassa erilaisia riskianalyysimenetelmi��. Kaikissa menetelmiss�� analysoitavan kohteen vaaratekij��t k��yd����n l��pi ja niiden aiheuttamien seurausten vakavuutta ja vaaran todenn��k��isyytt�� arvioidaan. N��iden perusteella voidaan valita tarvittavat toimenpiteet. Yritys voi valita tarkoitukseensa sopivimman analyysimenetelm��n tai yhdistell�� eri menetelmi��. T��ss�� kandidaatin ty��ss�� Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston jauhatuslaboratoriolle tehtiin riskikartoitus BS 8800-standardin mukaisesti. Riskikartoituksessa tuli ilmi vakaviakin puutteita jauhatuslaboratorion turvallisuudessa. Turvallisuuden parantamiseksi ilmi tulleille puutteille annettiin toimenpide-ehdotuksia. Toteutettujen toimenpiteiden j��lkeen on laboratorion turvallisuutta seurattava ja aika ajoin riskianalyysi on teht��v�� uudelleen, jotta laboratorion puutteet l��ydet����n ja niihin voidaan puuttua. N��in laboratorio pysyy turvallisena esimerkiksi laitemuutosten j��lkeen.

Understanding the indoor environment through mining sensory data - A case study

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a group of sensors linked by wireless medium to perform distributed sensing tasks. WSNs have attracted a wide interest from academia and industry alike due to their diversity of applications, including home automation, smart environment, and emergency services, in various buildings. The primary goal of a WSN is to collect data sensed by sensors. These data are characteristic of being heavily noisy, exhibiting temporal and spatial correlation. In order to extract useful information from such data, as this paper will demonstrate, people need to utilise various techniques to analyse the data. Data mining is a process in which a wide spectrum of data analysis methods is used. It is applied in the paper to analyse data collected from WSNs monitoring an indoor environment in a building. A case study is given to demonstrate how data mining can be used to optimise the use of the office space in a building.

Hist��rias de empreendedores: significados, narrativas e artefatos

Compreender o processo de significa����o e ressignifica����o que o empreendedor atribui ao novo neg��cio atrav��s das etapas de busca, percep����o e interpreta����o propostas por Daft e Weick (1984) ao longo do tempo. Design/metodologia/abordagem: Sob uma perspectiva interpretativista, este trabalho se valeu de abordagens qualitativas. Foram utilizadas t��c nicas de an��lise de narrativas, antenarrativas e an��lise de dados qualitativos sobre entrevistas realizadas com 11 empreendedores digitais em dois momentos diferentes. Descobertas: as an��lises sugerem que o empreendedor ressignifica seu neg��cio com o passar do tempo, provavelmente em fun����o do n��vel de sucesso do empreendimento. Esta pesquisa corrobora a proposi����o de Daft & Weick (1984) acerca da exist��ncia de um processo c��clico de busca, interpreta����o e a����o que levaria a um cont��nuo de ressignifica����es. Implica����es da pesquisa: Para os empreendedores (practioners), este trabalho lan��a luz sobre as possibilidades de uso das narrativas como recursos para influ��ncia e dissemina����o de significados (sensegiving). Para acad��micos, este trabalho oferece melhor conceitua����o do constructo ���artefato estrat��gico���, al��m de avan��ar na consolida����o dos m��todos de an��lise de narrativas. Originalidade/Valor: O valor dessa pesquisa se d�� em fortalecer os m��todos de an��lise de narrativas, al��m de apresentar um poss��vel caminho para capturar os elementos de ressignifica����o. Al��m disso, ao propor um framework de an��lise e constru����o de narrativas empreendedoras, este trabalho pode auxiliar pesquisadores e practioners

Information Visualization to Enhance Sensitivity and Selectivity in Biosensing

Funda����o de Amparo �� Pesquisa do Estado de S��o Paulo (FAPESP)

Preval��ncia de Cryptosporidium sp. em c��es de institui����es da cidade de S��o Paulo

Objective Dogs play an important role as infection source of human cryptosporidiosis. The objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of Cryptosporidium sp. in dogs as well as to compare two techniques of fecal analysis.Methods Four-hundred and fifty canine fecal samples from the city of S��o Paulo were analyzed between 2003 and 2004. Fecal samples were randomly selected from dogs housed in a university veterinary hospital (group 1, n=200) and private kennels (group 2, n=250). The detection of Cryptosporidium was performed using modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique. Statistical analysis was performed using the two-tailed test of significance at 5% confidence interval (z critical=+/- 1.645).Results Only Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts were found the prevalences found by light microscopy examination and PCR techniques were 8.8% and 9.5%, respectively. Young animals showed a lower frequency (5.5%) compared to adults (10.1%). There was no statistically significant difference in Cryptosporidium prevalence between males and females.Conclusions the prevalence of C. parvum in the canine population studied was similar to that one found in the literature and affects equally males and females. The use of PCR allowed the detection of more positive cases than light microscopy.

New approaches to open problems in gene expression microarray data

In the past decade, the advent of efficient genome sequencing tools and high-throughput experimental biotechnology has lead to enormous progress in the life science. Among the most important innovations is the microarray tecnology. It allows to quantify the expression for thousands of genes simultaneously by measurin the hybridization from a tissue of interest to probes on a small glass or plastic slide. The characteristics of these data include a fair amount of random noise, a predictor dimension in the thousand, and a sample noise in the dozens. One of the most exciting areas to which microarray technology has been applied is the challenge of deciphering complex disease such as cancer. In these studies, samples are taken from two or more groups of individuals with heterogeneous phenotypes, pathologies, or clinical outcomes. these samples are hybridized to microarrays in an effort to find a small number of genes which are strongly correlated with the group of individuals. Eventhough today methods to analyse the data are welle developed and close to reach a standard organization (through the effort of preposed International project like Microarray Gene Expression Data -MGED- Society [1]) it is not unfrequant to stumble in a clinician's question that do not have a compelling statistical method that could permit to answer it.The contribution of this dissertation in deciphering disease regards the development of new approaches aiming at handle open problems posed by clinicians in handle specific experimental designs. In Chapter 1 starting from a biological necessary introduction, we revise the microarray tecnologies and all the important steps that involve an experiment from the production of the array, to the quality controls ending with preprocessing steps that will be used into the data analysis in the rest of the dissertation. While in Chapter 2 a critical review of standard analysis methods are provided stressing most of problems that In Chapter 3 is introduced a method to adress the issue of unbalanced design of miacroarray experiments. In microarray experiments, experimental design is a crucial starting-point for obtaining reasonable results. In a two-class problem, an equal or similar number of samples it should be collected between the two classes. However in some cases, e.g. rare pathologies, the approach to be taken is less evident. We propose to address this issue by applying a modified version of SAM [2]. MultiSAM consists in a reiterated application of a SAM analysis, comparing the less populated class (LPC) with 1,000 random samplings of the same size from the more populated class (MPC) A list of the differentially expressed genes is generated for each SAM application. After 1,000 reiterations, each single probe given a "score" ranging from 0 to 1,000 based on its recurrence in the 1,000 lists as differentially expressed. The performance of MultiSAM was compared to the performance of SAM and LIMMA [3] over two simulated data sets via beta and exponential distribution. The results of all three algorithms over low- noise data sets seems acceptable However, on a real unbalanced two-channel data set reagardin Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia, LIMMA finds no significant probe, SAM finds 23 significantly changed probes but cannot separate the two classes, while MultiSAM finds 122 probes with score >300 and separates the data into two clusters by hierarchical clustering. We also report extra-assay validation in terms of differentially expressed genes Although standard algorithms perform well over low-noise simulated data sets, multi-SAM seems to be the only one able to reveal subtle differences in gene expression profiles on real unbalanced data. In Chapter 4 a method to adress similarities evaluation in a three-class prblem by means of Relevance Vector Machine [4] is described. In fact, looking at microarray data in a prognostic and diagnostic clinical framework, not only differences could have a crucial role. In some cases similarities can give useful and, sometimes even more, important information. The goal, given three classes, could be to establish, with a certain level of confidence, if the third one is similar to the first or the second one. In this work we show that Relevance Vector Machine (RVM) [2] could be a possible solutions to the limitation of standard supervised classification. In fact, RVM offers many advantages compared, for example, with his well-known precursor (Support Vector Machine - SVM [3]). Among these advantages, the estimate of posterior probability of class membership represents a key feature to address the similarity issue. This is a highly important, but often overlooked, option of any practical pattern recognition system. We focused on Tumor-Grade-three-class problem, so we have 67 samples of grade I (G1), 54 samples of grade 3 (G3) and 100 samples of grade 2 (G2). The goal is to find a model able to separate G1 from G3, then evaluate the third class G2 as test-set to obtain the probability for samples of G2 to be member of class G1 or class G3. The analysis showed that breast cancer samples of grade II have a molecular profile more similar to breast cancer samples of grade I. Looking at the literature this result have been guessed, but no measure of significance was gived before.

HERMES: Towards an Integrated Toolbox to Characterize Functional and Effective Brain Connectivity

The analysis of the interdependence between time series has become an important field of research in the last years, mainly as a result of advances in the characterization of dynamical systems from the signals they produce, the introduction of concepts such as generalized and phase synchronization and the application of information theory to time series analysis. In neurophysiology, different analytical tools stemming from these concepts have added to the ���traditional��� set of linear methods, which includes the cross-correlation and the coherency function in the time and frequency domain, respectively, or more elaborated tools such as Granger Causality. This increase in the number of approaches to tackle the existence of functional (FC) or effective connectivity (EC) between two (or among many) neural networks, along with the mathematical complexity of the corresponding time series analysis tools, makes it desirable to arrange them into a unified-easy-to-use software package. The goal is to allow neuroscientists, neurophysiologists and researchers from related fields to easily access and make use of these analysis methods from a single integrated toolbox. Here we present HERMES (http://hermes.ctb.upm.es), a toolbox for the Matlab�� environment (The Mathworks, Inc), which is designed to study functional and effective brain connectivity from neurophysiological data such as multivariate EEG and/or MEG records. It includes also visualization tools and statistical methods to address the problem of multiple comparisons. We believe that this toolbox will be very helpful to all the researchers working in the emerging field of brain connectivity analysis.

HERMES: towards an integrated toolbox to characterize functional and effective brain connectivity

The analysis of the interdependence between time series has become an important field of research in the last years, mainly as a result of advances in the characterization of dynamical systems from the signals they produce, the introduction of concepts such as generalized and phase synchronization and the application of information theory to time series analysis. In neurophysiology, different analytical tools stemming from these concepts have added to the ?traditional? set of linear methods, which includes the cross-correlation and the coherency function in the time and frequency domain, respectively, or more elaborated tools such as Granger Causality. This increase in the number of approaches to tackle the existence of functional (FC) or effective connectivity (EC) between two (or among many) neural networks, along with the mathematical complexity of the corresponding time series analysis tools, makes it desirable to arrange them into a unified, easy-to-use software package. The goal is to allow neuroscientists, neurophysiologists and researchers from related fields to easily access and make use of these analysis methods from a single integrated toolbox. Here we present HERMES (http://hermes.ctb.upm.es), a toolbox for the Matlab�� environment (The Mathworks, Inc), which is designed to study functional and effective brain connectivity from neurophysiological data such as multivariate EEG and/or MEG records. It includes also visualization tools and statistical methods to address the problem of multiple comparisons. We believe that this toolbox will be very helpful to all the researchers working in the emerging field of brain connectivity analysis.

Regarding "Edema and leg volume: Methods of assessment" (Letters to the Editor)

I noted with interest the article by Drs Perrin and Guex, entitled &dquo;Edema and leg volume: Methods of assessment,&dquo; published in Angiology 51:9-12, 2000. This was a timely and comprehensive review of the various methods in clinical use for the assessment of peripheral edema, notably in the leg. I would like to take this opportunity to alert readers to a further technique useful for this purpose, namely, bioelectrical impedance analysis. An early reportl described its use for the measurement of edema in the leg, but other than its successful use for the assessment of edema in the arm following masteCtoMy,2,1 the potential of the method remains to be fully realized. This is unfortunate since the method directly and quantifiably measures edema.

Flow-injection potentiometric method for the routine determination of chloride: application to bread analysis

Bread is consumed worldwide by man, thus contributing to the regular ingestion of certain inorganic species such as chloride. It controls the blood pressure if associated to a sodium intake and may increase the incidence of stomach ulcer. Its routine control should thus be established by means of quick and low cost procedures. This work reports a double- channel flow injection analysis (FIA) system with a new chloride sensor for the analysis of bread. All solutions are prepared in water and necessary ionic strength adjustments are made on-line. The body of the indicating electrode is made from a silver needle of 0.8 mm i.d. with an external layer of silver chloride. These devices were constructed with different lengths. Electrodes of 1.0 to 3.0 cm presented better analytical performance. The calibration curves under optimum conditions displayed Nernstian behaviour, with average slopes of 56 mV decade-1, with sampling rates of 60 samples h-1. The method was applied to analyze several kinds of bread, namely p��o de trigo, p��o integral, p��o de centeio, p��o de mistura, broa de milho, p��o sem sal, p��o meio sal, p��o-de-leite, and p��o de ��gua. The accuracy and precision of the potentiometric method were ascertained by comparison to a spectrophotometric method of continuous segmented flow. These methods were validated against ion-chromatography procedures.

Immunohistochemical and flow cytometric analysis of long-term label-retaining cells in the adult heart.

Cardiac-resident stem/progenitor cells have been identified based on expression of stem cell-associated antigens. However, no single surface marker allows to identify a definite cardiac stem/progenitor cell entity. Hence, functional stem cell markers have been extensively searched for. In homeostatic systems, stem cells divide infrequently and therefore retain DNA labels such as 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine, which are diluted with division. We used this method to analyze long-term label-retaining cells in the mouse heart after 14 days of 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine administration. Labeled cells were detected using immunohistochemical and flow-cytometric methods after varying chasing periods up to 12 months. Using mathematical models, the observed label dilution could consistently be described in the context of a 2-population model, whereby a population of rapidly dividing cells accounted for an accelerated early decline, and a population of slowly dividing cells accounted for decelerated dilution on longer time scales. Label-retaining cells were preferentially localized in the atria and apical region and stained negative for markers of the major cell lineages present in the heart. Most cells with long-term label-retention expressed stem cell antigen-1 (Sca-1). Sca-1(+)CD31(-) cells formed cell aggregates in culture, out of which lineage-negative (Lin(-))Sca-1(+)CD31(-) cells emerged, which could be cultured for many passages. These cells formed cardiospheres and showed differentiation potential into mesenchymal cell lineages. When cultured in cardiomyogenic differentiation medium, they expressed cardiac-specific genes. In conclusion, recognition of slow-cycling cells provides functional evidence of stem/progenitor cells in the heart. Lin(-)Sca-1(+)CD31(-) cardiac-derived progenitors have a potential for differentiation into cardiomyogenic and mesenchymal cell lineages.