150 research outputs found
Immigration and early life stages recruitment of the European flounder (Platichthys flesus) to an estuarine nursery: the influence of environmental factors
Connectivity between coastal spawning grounds and estuarine nurseries is a critical step in the life cycle of many fish species. Larval immigration and transport-associated physical–biological processes are determinants of recruitment success to nursery areas. The recruitment of the European flounder, Platichthys flesus, to estuarine nurseries located at the southern edge of the species distribution range, has been usually investigated during its juvenile stages, while estuarine recruitment during the earlier planktonic life stage remains largely unstudied. The present study investigated the patterns of flounder larval recruitment and the influence of environmental factors on the immigration of the early life stages to the Lima estuary (NW Portugal), integrating data on fish larvae and post-settlement individuals (< 50 mm length), collected over 7 years. Late-stage larvae arrived at the estuary between February and July and peak abundances were observed in April. Post-settlement individuals (< 50 mm) occurred later between April and October, whereas newly-settled ones (< 20 mm) were found only in May and June. Variables associated with the spawning, survival and growth of larvae in the ocean (sea surface temperature, chlorophyll a and inland hydrological variables) were the major drivers of flounder occurrence in the estuarine nursery. Although the adjacent coastal area is characterized by a current system with strong seasonality and mesoscale variability, we did not identify any influence of variables related with physical processes (currents and upwelling) on the occurrence of early life stages in the estuary. A wider knowledge on the influence of the coastal circulation variability and its associated effects upon ocean-estuarine connectivity is required to improve our understanding of the population dynamics of marine spawning fish that use estuarine nurseries
S3PHER: Secure and Searchable System for Patient-driven HEalth data shaRing
Healthcare data contains some of the most sensitive information about an
individual, yet sharing this data with healthcare practitioners can
significantly enhance patient care and support research efforts. However,
current systems for sharing health data between patients and caregivers do not
fully address the critical security requirements of privacy, confidentiality,
and consent management. Furthermore, compliance with regulatory laws such as
GDPR and HIPAA is often deficient, largely because patients typically are asked
to provide general consent for healthcare entities to access their data.
Recognizing the limitations of existing systems, we present S3PHER, a novel
approach to sharing health data that provides patients with control over who
accesses their data, what data is accessed, and when. Our system ensures end to
end privacy by integrating a Proxy ReEncryption Scheme with a Searchable
Encryption Scheme, utilizing Homomorphic Encryption to enable healthcare
practitioners to privately search and access patients' documents. The
practicality and benefits of S3PHER are further validated through end to end
deployment and use case analyses, with tests on real datasets demonstrating
promising execution times.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables in the appendi
Habitat loss and gain: Influence on habitat attractiveness for estuarine fish communities
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Habitat structure and complexity influence the structuring and functioning of fish communities. Habitat changes are one of the main pressures affecting estuarine systems worldwide, yet the degree and rate of change and its impact on fish communities is still poorly understood. In order to quantify historical modifications in habitat structure, an ecohydrological classification system using physiotopes, i.e. units with homogenous abiotic characteristics, was developed for the lower Lima estuary (NW Portugal). Field data, aerial imagery, historical maps and interpolation methods were used to map input variables, including bathymetry, substratum (hard/soft), sediment composition, hydrodynamics (current velocity) and vegetation coverage. Physiotopes were then mapped for the years of 1933 and 2013 and the areas lost and gained over the 80 years were quantified. The implications of changes for the benthic and demersal fish communities using the lower estuary were estimated using the attractiveness to those communities of each physiotope, while considering the main estuarine habitat functions for fish, namely spawning, nursery, feeding and refuge areas and migratory routes. The lower estuary was highly affected due to urbanisation and development and, following a port/harbour expansion, its boundary moved seaward causing an increase in total area. Modifications led to the loss of most of its sandy and saltmarsh intertidal physiotopes, which were replaced by deeper subtidal physiotopes. The most attractive physiotopes for fish (defined as the way in which they supported the fish ecological features) decreased in area while less attractive ones increased, producing an overall lower attractiveness of the studied area in 2013 compared to 1933. The implications of habitat alterations for the fish using the estuary include potential changes in the nursery carrying capacity and the functioning of the fish community. The study also highlighted the poor knowledge of the impacts of habitat changes on fish due to coastal development and urbanisation and emphasises that ecosystem management and conservation will benefit from a wider understanding of habitat functional roles and habitat changes influencing the functioning and structure of the fish communities
Do we need hundreds of classifiers to solve real world classification problems?
We evaluate 179 classifiers arising from 17 families (discriminant analysis, Bayesian, neural networks, support vector machines, decision trees, rule-based classifiers, boosting, bagging, stacking, random forests and other ensembles, generalized linear models, nearest-neighbors, partial least squares and principal component regression, logistic and multinomial regression, multiple adaptive regression splines and other methods), implemented in Weka, R (with and without the caret package), C and Matlab, including all the relevant classifiers available today. We use 121 data sets, which represent the whole UCI data base (excluding the large- scale problems) and other own real problems, in order to achieve significant conclusions about the classifier behavior, not dependent on the data set collection. The classifiers most likely to be the bests are the random forest (RF) versions, the best of which (implemented in R and accessed via caret) achieves 94.1% of the maximum accuracy overcoming 90% in the 84.3% of the data sets. However, the difference is not statistically significant with the second best, the SVM with Gaussian kernel implemented in C using LibSVM, which achieves 92.3% of the maximum accuracy. A few models are clearly better than the remaining ones: random forest, SVM with Gaussian and polynomial kernels, extreme learning machine with Gaussian kernel, C5.0 and avNNet (a committee of multi-layer perceptrons implemented in R with the caret package). The random forest is clearly the best family of classifiers (3 out of 5 bests classifiers are RF), followed by SVM (4 classifiers in the top-10), neural networks and boosting ensembles (5 and 3 members in the top-20, respectively)We would like to acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
(MICINN), which supported this work under projects TIN2011-22935 and TIN2012-32262S
Recurrent neck swelling after iodinated contrast media administration
A 74-year-old male with an abdominal aortic aneurism reported 2 episodes of neck swelling 16 hours after an abdominal CT with iodinated contrast media that reappeared in a subsequent CT, although the use of pre-medication. The tests used to exclude the hypersensitivity hypothesis where negative and once a new CT where needed we decided to do it with close monitoring. We performed a facial picture and cervical ultrasound exam before and 24 hours after the exam. The neck swelling and the ultrasound findings 24 hours after the CT made the diagnosis of contrast induced sialoadenitis possible. Contrast induced sialadentis is an uncommon adverse reaction to iodinated contrast media. As it presents with neck swelling it is important to exclude a hypersensitivity reaction because it's further limitations and make a differential diagnosis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Pulmonary exacerbations in patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia: an expert consensus definition for use in clinical trials
Pulmonary exacerbations; Primary ciliary dyskinesia; DefinitionEmpitjorament pulmonar; Discinèsia ciliar primària; DefinicióEmpeoramiento pulmonar; Discinesia ciliar primaria; DefiniciónPulmonary exacerbations are a cause of significant morbidity in patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) and are frequently used as an outcome measure in clinical research into chronic lung diseases. So far, there has been no consensus on the definition of pulmonary exacerbations in PCD. 30 multidisciplinary experts and patients developed a consensus definition for children and adults with PCD. Following a systematic review, the panel used a modified Delphi process with a combination of face-to-face meetings and e-surveys to develop a definition that can be used in research settings for children and adults with PCD. A pulmonary exacerbation was defined by the presence of three or more of the following seven items: 1) increased cough, 2) change in sputum volume and/or colour, 3) increased shortness of breath perceived by the patient or parent, 4) decision to start or change antibiotic treatment because of perceived pulmonary symptoms, 5) malaise, tiredness, fatigue or lethargy, 6) new or increased haemoptysis, and 7) temperature >38°C. The consensus panel proposed that the definition should be used for future clinical trials. The definition should be validated and the usability assessed during these studies
A empresa Júnior como agente potencializadora de ensino e sua influência no desenvolvimento social - um estudo de caso para I9 engenharia JR / The Junior company as a potentializing agent for education and its social influence - a case study for I9 engineering JR
As Empresas Juniores vêm atingindo um crescimento notável nos últimos tempos, e isso ocorre principalmente no Brasil, onde os números já passam a precursora do movimento no mundo, não é exagero dizer que o país é líder e que colhe os frutos dessas iniciativas a todo o momento, seja no setor público ou privado. Além de expor estudantes ao mundo corporativo e práticas empreendedoras, tornando-os mais preparados para o mercado de trabalho, são um elo entre a instituição superior e a sociedade, auxiliam as empresas às quais prestam serviço e beneficiando a sociedade em que estão inseridas, propiciando melhoria de vida para a população. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo indagar a ação potencializadora de uma empresa júnior, do seu ensino e sua influência no desenvolvimento social, através do estudo de caso de uma EJ do Sertão de Alagoas. A metodologia abordada consiste em um levantamento de dados, realizado através de um questionário, que busca quantificar o aprendizado adquirido pela vivência empresarial pelos membros da diretoria de projetos do ano de 2018 da EJ em estudo. O que tange o caráter social, serão estudados os projetos realizados pela I9 Engenharia Jr. no ano de 2018 com a finalidade de identificar em que consiste o faturamento da empresa e a influência dos tipos de projetos nas atividades socioeconômicas da região. Os resultados encontrados comprovam o crescimento que elas trazem, tanto para os que fazem parte dela, quanto para a sociedade que estão inseridas.
Chemical composition, antinociceptive and free radical-scavenging activities of geopropolis from Melipona subnitida Ducke (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini)
Like many stingless bee species, Melipona subnitida Ducke uses geopropolis (a mixture of wax, plant resins, pollen grains and mud) for sealing small crevices in their nest cavities, in order to avoid the entry of air, and for defense against pathogenic microorganisms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antinociceptive and free radical-scavenging activities of ethanolic extracts of six geopropolis samples from M. subnitida and the phenolic fractions obtained by C18-SPE extraction. The in vivo antinociceptive activity was analyzed on abdominal constriction induced by acetic acid in mice and in vitro free radical-scavenging activities by DPPH and ABTS assays. Additionally we analyzed the chemical composition of the phenolic fractions by HPLC-DAD. The six samples of geopropolis showed variations in the total phenolic content over the period, but not in the chemical profile observed by HPLC-DAD. Geopropolis is a rich source of bioactive compounds as phenolics 6-O-p-coumaroyl-D-alactopyranose, 6-O-cinnamoyl-1-Op-coumaroyl-β-D-glucopyranose, 7-O-methyl naringenin, 7-O-methyl aromadendrin, 7,4’-di-O-methyl aromadendrin, 4’-O-methyl kaempferol, 3-O-methyl quercetin, 5-O-methyl aromadendrin and 5-O-methyl kaempferol with potential antioxidant and antinociceptive activities. The antioxidant activity is related to the total phenolic content
A Simple Experiment to Explore Standing Waves in a Flexible Corrugated Sound Tube
Sound tubes, pipes, and singing rods are used as musical instruments and as toys to perform amusing experiments. In particular, corrugated tubes present unique characteristics with respect to the sounds they can produce; that is why they have been studied so intensively, both at theoretical and experimental levels.Experimental studies usually involve expensive and sophisticated equipment that is out of reach of school laboratory facilities. In this paper we show how to investigate quantitatively the sounds produced by a flexible sound tube corrugated on the inside by using educational equipment readily available in school laboratories, such as the oscilloscope, the microphone, the anemometer, and the air pump. We show that it is possible for students to study the discontinuous spectrum of sounds produced by a flexible corrugated tube and go even further, computing the speed of sound in air with a simple experimental procedure
Clinical trial results in context: comparison of baseline characteristics and outcomes of 38,510 RECOVERY trial participants versus a reference population of 346,271 people hospitalised with COVID-19 in England
Background: Randomised trials are essential to reliably assess medical interventions. Nevertheless, interpretation of such studies, particularly when considering absolute effects, is enhanced by understanding how the trial population may differ from the populations it aims to represent. Methods: We compared baseline characteristics and mortality of RECOVERY participants recruited in England (n = 38,510) with a reference population hospitalised with COVID-19 in England (n = 346,271) from March 2020 to November 2021. We used linked hospitalisation and mortality data for both cohorts to extract demographics, comorbidity/frailty scores, and crude and age- and sex-adjusted 28-day all-cause mortality. Results: Demographics of RECOVERY participants were broadly similar to the reference population, but RECOVERY participants were younger (mean age [standard deviation]: RECOVERY 62.6 [15.3] vs reference 65.7 [18.5] years) and less frequently female (37% vs 45%). Comorbidity and frailty scores were lower in RECOVERY, but differences were attenuated after age stratification. Age- and sex-adjusted 28-day mortality declined over time but was similar between cohorts across the study period (RECOVERY 23.7% [95% confidence interval: 23.3–24.1%]; vs reference 24.8% [24.6–25.0%]), except during the first pandemic wave in the UK (March–May 2020) when adjusted mortality was lower in RECOVERY. Conclusions: Adjusted 28-day mortality in RECOVERY was similar to a nationwide reference population of patients admitted with COVID-19 in England during the same period but varied substantially over time in both cohorts. Therefore, the absolute effect estimates from RECOVERY were broadly applicable to the target population at the time but should be interpreted in the light of current mortality estimates. Trial registration: ISRCTN50189673- Feb. 04, 2020, NCT04381936- May 11, 2020
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