Walking towards the “hidden” role of dirigent proteins in Vitis vinifera secondary metabolism

Grapevine is one of the most cultivated fruit crop worldwide with Vitis vinifera being the species with the highest economical importance due to the high quality standards of its berries. Nonetheless, it is also the most susceptible Vitis species to fungal pathogens. Among others, relevant fungal diseases currently threatening grapevine cultures are powdery mildew, caused by Erysiphe necator, and esca, a disease complex comprised of several fungi in which Phaeomoniella chlamydospora and Phaeoacremonium aleophilum participate.(...)Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

A general-purpose tool for reliability and availability analysis of repairable systems

Mestrado de dupla diplomação com a UTFPR - Universidade Tecnológica Federal do ParanáThis thesis covers general mathematical and simulation models for the reliability and availability analysis of repairable systems along with estimation methods and model selection criterion. A combined mathematical and simulation model called the Failure-Repair Process is proposed, based on the trend-renewal process. This model is based on a binary state system, where the system may only be in one of two states: working or failed. This model is then integrated into a general-purpose tool, for automated modelling of repairable systems. The classical Akaike information criterion is used to automate the choice of failure and repair models that best fit the available data. Estimators for different performance measures of the systems are studied, such as point and mean availability, rate of occurrence of failures and a first order reliability estimator based on the Kaplan-Meier estimator. Numerical studies are conducted in the proposed non-analytical estimators for the availability, leading to a robust mean availability estimator and a intuitive but sample demanding point availability estimator. Furthermore, a complete quantitative study is conducted on real data from the food industry together with a presentation of the implemented tool functionalities. Overall, the proposed model is able to adapt very well to real data with different characteristics, and, consequently, the resulting performance indicators are befitting to practice.Esta tese aborda modelos matemáticos e de simulação para a análise de confiabilidade e disponibilidade de sistemas reparáveis, juntamente com métodos de estimação e critério de seleção de modelos. Um modelo matemático e de simulação combinados denominado Failure-Repair Process é proposto, baseado no trend-renewal process. Este modelo consiste em um sistema de caracterização binária, onde o sistema pode estar em apenas um de dois estados: em funcionamento ou falha. Este modelo é então integrado em uma ferramenta de uso geral, para modelagem automatizada de sistemas reparáveis. O clássico critério de informação de Akaike é usado para automatizar a escolha dos modelos de falha e reparo que melhor se ajustam aos dados disponíveis. São estudados estimadores para diferentes medidas de desempenho dos sistemas, tais como disponibilidade pontual e média, taxa de ocorrência de falhas e um estimador de confiabilidade de primeira ordem baseado no estimador Kaplan-Meier. Estudos numéricos são conduzidos nos estimadores nãoanalíticos propostos para a disponibilidade, levando a um estimador de disponibilidade média robusto e um estimador de disponibilidade puntual intuitivo, mas que demanda grandes amostras. Além disso, é realizado um estudo quantitativo completo sobre dados reais da indústria de alimentos juntamente com uma apresentação das funcionalidades da ferramenta implementada. De maneira geral, o modelo proposto é capaz de se adaptar muito bem a dados reais com diferentes características e, consequentemente, os indicadores de desempenho resultantes são adequados à prática

Stock Market Tendency Prediction Methods

Investing in stock market is not an easy task, it could be a high-risk investment. Stock price depends on several factors that can be internal factors, such as, the company itself which is down-grade his worth or external factor such as politics, or even the financial environment of the country of that specific market. Investors need careful decision-making skills to maintain profit in the long run. Usually they use techniques that can help them to make a better decision, or at least facilitate that “job”. In the past years, many machine learning models have been investigated for this purpose. Being an area, which is very influenced by uncontrollable factors, it´s not easy to get a perfect solution. This thesis demonstrates a possible methodology to produce a good price prediction of the stock market and make it available to the general public.Investir no mercado de ações não é uma tarefa fácil, pode tornar-se um investimento de algo risco. O preço de stock depende de vários fatores que podem ser internos, como por exemplo, uma empresa que reduza o seu valor, ou externos como política, ambiente financeiro do país. Investidores precisam de adquirir experiência em planeamento de modo a manter ou aumentar o lucro. Normalmente, estes usam técnicas que lhes facilita a tomar uma melhor decisão. Desde á uns anos atrás que machine learning tem sido estudado, mas como é uma área que tem fatores incontroláveis, faz com que não seja possível obter uma solução perfeita. Esta Tese demonstra uma possível metodologia que produz uma boa previsão de preço do mercado de ações e o tornar disponível para o publico

The role of intelligent systems in the development of peer-to-peer systems for energetic distribution management

Intelligent Systems are one of today’s greatest strengths, while environmental sustainability is one of today’s biggest challenges. This study aims to integrate the most recent innovations in intelligent technologies with the development of smart energy grids and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems for energetic distribution. Specifically, it investigates the complex relations between these concepts, while analysing how developments in each field both influence and are influenced by each other. To do so, this study answers three research questions. The first one regards the implementation of Intelligent Systems, the second concerns the development of Smart Grids, while the third is concerned with the possibility of building P2P Systems. To provide relevant conclusions, an extensive literature review regarding all subjects was carried, along with a statistical analysis of three online surveys. The obtained results show that there are significant influences and connections between the development of intelligent technologies and the implementation of smart grids and P2P Systems, thus supporting several hypotheses formulated for this study. On this basis, conclusions are drawn concerning the high value of each topic in separate, and the even higher value of the topics when integrated.Sistemas Inteligentes são um dos maiores benefícios dos dias de hoje, enquanto a sustentabilidade ambiental é um dos maiores desafios. Este estudo pretende integrar as mais recentes inovações em tecnologias inteligentes com o desenvolvimento de redes de energia inteligentes (Smart Grids) e sistemas Peer-to-Peer (P2P) para distribuição energética. Especificamente, investiga as relações complexas entre estes conceitos, enquanto analisa como desenvolvimentos em cada área influenciam e são influenciados pelas outras. Para isso, este estudo responde a três questões de pesquisa. A primeira relaciona-se com a implementação de Sistemas Inteligentes, a segunda com o desenvolvimento de Redes Inteligentes, e a terceira está relacionada com a possibilidade de construir Sistemas P2P. Para obter conclusões relevantes, foi feita uma extensa revisão de literatura relativa a todos os temas, assim como uma análise estatística de três questionários online. Os resultados obtidos mostram que existem influências e conexões significativas entre o desenvolvimento de tecnologias inteligentes e a implementação de Smart Grids e Sistemas P2P, suportando assim múltiplas hipóteses formuladas para este estudo. Com esta base, são retiradas conclusões que confirmam o elevado valor de cada tópico em separado, e o ainda maior valor dos tópicos quando integrados

Wake me up!

Criação literária - poem

Structural metamaterials with negative mechanical/thermomechanical indices: A review

Funding Information: This work was funded by National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, Reference UID/CTM/50025/2019. Jo?o Cardoso acknowledges the funding by FCT Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Chinese Materials Research SocietyStructural metamaterials presenting negative values of one or more mechanical and thermomechanical indices – namely the Poisson's ratio, the linear compressibility, and the coefficient of thermal expansion – are the promising candidates to the applications in many fields, ranging from precision mechanics to biomedical devices or energy absorption. Although scattered mentions may be found in the literature since the late eighties of 20th century, the systematic research efforts concerning these materials became effective much later. The present work is to review the main scientific contributions to the topic in the last five years. This paper first deals with those metamaterials showing a single negative index, and then proceeds to analyze the much less frequent instances of coupled negative indices, with emphasis on the so-called anepectic case, which exhibits an unusual thermomechanical response.publishersversionpublishe

Looking Behind the Scenes: An Assessment of the Interdependence of Brazilian Cultural Industries

How important is Brazil’s cultural industries to its economy? We provide an answer to this question by evaluating the interdependence of the cultural activities in the Brazilian production structure and its evolution over the last few years (2005 – 2009). To accomplish this, we disaggregate 13 cultural economic industries in the Brazilian input-output table and calculate several indexes, such as, the production multiplier, linkage indexes, fields of influence and extraction analysis. Results show that the only cultural sector with high links to other sectors in the production structure is Telecommunication, edition and news agencies and that this sector provides the greatest loss in output when removed from the economy. Moreover, the sectors Jewelry, music instruments and toys, and Manufacture of telecommunication equipment have output multipliers higher than the average of the economy

Transcriptomic changes following the compatible interaction Vitis vinifera-Erysiphe necator. Paving the way towards an enantioselective role in plant defence modulation

The compatible interaction between Erysiphe necator and Vitis vinifera induces significant alterations in the host transcriptome, affecting essentially those genes involved in signalling and secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways. The precise transcriptomic changes vary from the early events to later stages of infection. In the present work, suppressive subtraction hybridization (SSH) was used to identify several differentially expressed transcripts in symptomatic and asymptomatic leaves from powdery mildew infected grapevines following a long term interaction. The detected transcripts show little or no correlation with similar expression studies concerning the early stages of infection which suggests distinct host responses occur before and after the infection is established. The transcription level of thirteen genes was assessed through qRT-PCR using appropriately selected and validated normalization genes. With one exception, all these genes underwent moderate levels of differential transcription, with log2- fold change values ranging from 2.65 to 4.36. The exception, a dirigent-like (DIR) protein, was upregulated over 180 fold in symptomatic leaves, suggesting an important role for stereochemical selectivity in the compatible interaction E. necatoreV. vinifera. DIR copy number was determined in the genome of three grapevine cultivars exhibiting high (Carignan), moderate (Fernão Pires) and low (Touriga Nacional) sensitivity to E. necator. It was found to be a two-copy gene in all cultivars analyzed. Further analysis involving DIR metabolic neighbourhood transcripts was performed. The possible physiological significance of the detected DIR upregulation is discusse