A Swarm of Salesmen: Algorithmic Approaches to Multiagent Modeling

This honors thesis describes the algorithmic abstraction of a problem modeling a swarm of Mars rovers, where many agents must together achieve a goal. The algorithmic formulation of this problem is based on the traveling salesman problem (TSP), and so in this thesis I offer a review of the mathematical technique of linear programming in the context of its application to the TSP, an overview of some variations of the TSP and algorithms for approximating and solving them, and formulations without solutions of two novel TSP variations which are useful for modeling the original problem

A Swarm of Salesmen: Algorithmic Approaches to Multiagent Modeling

This honors thesis describes the algorithmic abstraction of a problem modeling a swarm of Mars rovers, where many agents must together achieve a goal. The algorithmic formulation of this problem is based on the traveling salesman problem (TSP), and so in this thesis I offer a review of the mathematical technique of linear programming in the context of its application to the TSP, an overview of some variations of the TSP and algorithms for approximating and solving them, and formulations without solutions of two novel TSP variations which are useful for modeling the original problem

Interruption of pregnancy in fetuses bearing malformations incompatible with extra-uterine life : brazilian magistrates and prosecutors positions

Orientador: Renato Passini JuniorDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Ciencias MedicasResumo: Introdução: A legislação não permite a interrupção da gestação em casos de malformações fetais incompatíveis com a vida extra-uterina, cabendo ao Poder Judiciário decidir quando há uma solicitação deste tipo. Objetivos: Investigar a opinião de Magistrados e membros do Ministério Público sobre o abortamento nos casos de malformações fetais incompatíveis com a vida extra-uterina, especialmente em relação à anencefalia. Método: Análise parcial de dados obtidos em duas pesquisas realizadas pelo Centro de Pesquisas em Saúde Reprodutiva de Campinas (CEMICAMP), que objetivaram estudar a opinião destes profissionais acerca do aborto induzido. Foram obtidos dados de 1493 Magistrados e 2614 Promotores de Justiça. Foi constituído um banco de dados com as informações de interesse das pesquisas originais, analisado com auxílio do programa estatístico SAS versão 9.02, envolvendo análise bivariada e múltipla, por regressão logística. Resultados: Para 78,5% dos Magistrados e 82,6% dos membros do Ministério Público, a interrupção da gestação deveria ser permitida nos casos de qualquer malformação fetal incompatível com a vida extra-uterina. Em casos de diagnóstico de anencefalia, estes valores foram de 79,2% e 84,1%, respectivamente. Na análise multivariada, as variáveis associadas à opinião dos pesquisados foram a religiosidade, importância da religião e das concepções religiosas pessoais sobre as respostas dadas, experiência de gravidez indesejada que resultou em aborto, sexo, estado marital e o fato de possuir filhos. Conclusões: A grande maioria dos Magistrados e membros do Ministério Público foi favorável ao abortamento nas hipóteses estudadas, sendo as variáveis ligadas à religião as que mais influenciaram seu posicionamentoAbstract: Introduction: In Brazil abortion in cases of fetal malformation or anencephaly is prohibited by law. Pregnant women who want to perform an abortion in such cases must seek for a judicial order. Objectives: Evaluate the opinion of brazilian magistrates and Prosecutors about abortion in cases of fetal malformation incompatible with life and anencephaly. Methodology: It was a partial data analysis from data obtained in two researchs carried out by Centro de Pesquisas em Saúde Reprodutiva de Campinas (CEMICAMP ), to evaluate the opinion and conduct of these professionals about induced abortion. There were data from 1453 Magistrates and 2614 Prosecutors. It was made a data bank with data from the original studies, that was processed and analyzed using the statistical package SAS version 9.02. Results: For 78.5% of the Magistrates and 82.6% of the Prosecutors abortion should be permitted in cases of severe fetal malformation incompatible with life. In cases of anencephaly abortion should be permitted for 79.2% of the Magistrates and for 84.1% of the Prosecutors. Religiosity, influence of religion and personal religious convictions among responses, experience with unwanted pregnancy that ended in abortion, gender, marital status and the fact of having children had shown, in multivariable analysis, association with the opinion about abortion in the hypothesis studied. Conclusion: The great majority of Magistrates and Prosecutors had a favorable opinion about abortion in both hypothesis evaluated. Variables associated with religion had the strongest association with the opinion about abortion in cases of fetal malformation and anencephaly.Abstract: Introduction: In Brazil abortion in cases of fetal malformation or anencephaly is prohibited by law. Pregnant women who want to perform an abortion in such cases must seek for a judicial order. Objectives: Evaluate the opinion of brazilian magistrates and Prosecutors about abortion in cases of fetal malformation incompatible with life and anencephaly. Methodology: It was a partial data analysis from data obtained in two researchs carried out by Centro de Pesquisas em Saúde Reprodutiva de Campinas (CEMICAMP ), to evaluate the opinion and conduct of these professionals about induced abortion. There were data from 1453 Magistrates and 2614 Prosecutors. It was made a data bank with data from the original studies, that was processed and analyzed using the statistical package SAS version 9.02. Results: For 78.5% of the Magistrates and 82.6% of the Prosecutors abortion should be permitted in cases of severe fetal malformation incompatible with life. In cases of anencephaly abortion should be permitted for 79.2% of the Magistrates and for 84.1% of the Prosecutors. Religiosity, influence of religion and personal religious convictions among responses, experience with unwanted pregnancy that ended in abortion, gender, marital status and the fact of having children had shown, in multivariable analysis, association with the opinion about abortion in the hypothesis studied. Conclusion: The great majority of Magistrates and Prosecutors had a favorable opinion about abortion in both hypothesis evaluated. Variables associated with religion had the strongest association with the opinion about abortion in cases of fetal malformation and anencephalyMestradoCiencias BiomedicasMestre em Tocoginecologi

Visual servoing of a robotic endoscope holder based on surgical instrument tracking

International audienceWe propose an image-based control for a roboticendoscope holder during laparoscopic surgery. Our aim is toprovide more comfort to the practitioner during surgery byautomatically positioning the endoscope at his request. To doso, we propose to maintain one or more instruments roughly atthe center of the laparoscopic image through different commandmodes. The originality of this method relies on the direct useof the endoscopic image and the absence of artificial markersadded to the instruments. The application is validated on a testbench with a commercial robotic endoscope holder

Non-Newtonian coefficient condition for a stable long-time behavior of a single bubble: existence and characteristics of stable solutions

Abstract The present paper takes up the underlying nonlinear initial value problem from a preceding author’s work about the dynamics of a single bubble in a highly viscous liquid medium under different pressure impacts. The arising ordinary differential equation is mainly based on the constitutive relation of a second-order liquid that in particular includes two non-Newtonian material constants. In this article, the significance of these coefficients is mathematically analyzed in detail by proving the existence of stable solutions of the named initial value problem. This is achieved by special transformations of the differential equation at hand and the introduction of appropriate Lyapunov functions. It particularly turns out that a combined condition of the non-Newtonian coefficients and diverse restrictions to the external pressure impact are decisive for the validity of the existence results. Furthermore, the convergence speed of solutions is investigated by considering the linearized equation associated with the present initial value problem and by applying a special variant of Gronwall’s lemma. The main theoretical result, being the prementioned strong condition for the non-Newtonian coefficients, is finally compared to real data sets

Anti-Trichomonas vaginalis activity of marine-associated fungi from the South Brazilian Coast

AbstractTrichomonas vaginalis is the causative agent of trichomonosis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease. Infection with this protozoan may have serious consequences, especially for women. Currently, 5-nitroimidazole drugs are the treatment of choice for trichomonosis, but the emergence of resistance has limited the effectiveness of this therapy. In this context, this study aimed to evaluate the anti-T. vaginalis activity of marine-associated fungi found in the South Brazilian Coast. A total of 42 marine-associated fungal species (126 filtrate samples) isolated from 39 different marine organisms, mainly sponges, were selected to be screened against T. vaginalis. Of these, two filtrate samples from Hypocrea lixii F02 and Penicillium citrinum F40 showed significant growth-inhibitory activity (up to 100%) against ATCC 30236 and fresh clinical isolates, including a metronidazole-resistant isolate. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of H. lixii F02 and P. citrinum F40 samples for all isolates tested, including the metronidazole-resistant isolate, were 2.5mg/mL. The kinetic growth curve showed that the filtrate samples were able to reduce the density of parasites to zero within 24h of incubation, which was confirmed by microscopy. Both fungal filtrate samples exhibited no hemolytic activity, and the P. citrinum F40 filtrate sample showed low cytotoxicity against Vero cells. These data suggest that marine-associated fungi from the South Brazilian Coast may produce potential candidates for further investigation and possible use in the treatment of metronidazole-resistant trichomonosis

Análise e implementação de um sistema integrado de busca a partir dos protocolos OAI-PMH, Z39.50, SRW e SRU

O presente artigo descreve a análise e implementação de um sistema de busca integrado, que utiliza os principais protocolos de interoperabilidade e padrões de metadados presentes no contexto acadêmico e científico para a aquisição e disseminação de informações, como catálogos de bibliotecas, bibliotecas digitais, repositórios digitais, sistemas federados, bibliotecas virtuais, dentre outros. O principal objetivo desta implementação é disponibilizar uma interface única de busca, de modo a proporcionar um sistema de busca mais abrangente aos usuários, assim como ampliar a disseminação de informações

DASHR: Database of Small Human Noncoding RNAs

Small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) are highly abundant RNAs, typically long, that act as key regulators of diverse cellular processes. Although thousands of sncRNA genes are known to exist in the human genome, no single database provides searchable, unified annotation, and expression information for full sncRNA transcripts and mature RNA products derived from these larger RNAs. Here, we present the Database of small human noncoding RNAs (DASHR) . DASHR contains the most comprehensive information to date on human sncRNA genes and mature sncRNA products. DASHR provides a simple user interface for researchers to view sequence and secondary structure, compare expression levels, and evidence of specific processing across all sncRNA genes and mature sncRNA products in various human tissues. DASHR annotation and expression data covers all major classes of sncRNAs including microRNAs (miRNAs), Piwi-interacting (piRNAs), small nuclear, nucleolar, cytoplasmic (sn-, sno-, scRNAs, respectively), transfer (tRNAs), and ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs). Currently, DASHR (v1.0) integrates 187 smRNA high-throughput sequencing (smRNA-seq) datasets with over 2.5 billion reads and annotation data from multiple public sources. DASHR contains annotations for ~48,000 human sncRNA genes and mature sncRNA products, 82% of which are expressed in one of more of the curated tissues. DASHR is available at http://lisanwanglab.org/DASHR

Microrganismos em favor da saúde humana

Os fungos e as bactérias possuem um enorme potencial de produção de compostos biologicamente ativos que podem e são utilizados no tratamento de várias enfermidades humanas. Destaca-se, nesta breve revisão, a importância da conservação da biodiversidade brasileira que significa, ao mesmo tempo, a conservação da diversidade química utilizada em favor da saúde humana como, por exemplo, na produção de antibióticos e antitumorais. A indústria da biotecnologia faz uso das diferentes formas vivas para o desenvolvimento de tecnologia, aqui mostramos em especial compostos oriundos de fungos.Os fungos e as bactérias possuem um enorme potencial de produção de compostos biologicamente ativos que podem e são utilizados no tratamento de várias enfermidades humanas. Destaca-se, nesta breve revisão, a importância da conservação da biodiversidade brasileira que significa, ao mesmo tempo, a conservação da diversidade química utilizada em favor da saúde humana como, por exemplo, na produção de antibióticos e antitumorais. A indústria da biotecnologia faz uso das diferentes formas vivas para o desenvolvimento de tecnologia, aqui mostramos em especial compostos oriundos de fungos