Applying ISO/IEC 25010 standard to prioritize and solve quality issues of automatic ETL processes

The goal of any automatic process is to run without human intervention. However, it is not uncommon that unexpected issues recur, requiring repetitive human intervention in order to processes execute successfully. Such situations indicate that those processes were not designed with the necessary quality requirements to achieve the automation goal, and quality needs to be improved. This paper describes a case study of the quality improvements of several automatic ETL processes that required a growing amount of effort to ensure its successful execution. Key to the improvement process was the use of the ISO/IEC 25010 Standard for Systems and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation to categorize all issues found. This approach proved beneficial in two important ways: first, it created a clear understanding of the overall ETL processes quality problems, second, it made obvious which issues deserved uttermost attention.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Creating and implementing a system of geolocation for physiotherapy services

The aim of this work was to create a geolocation system for Physiotherapy services. This system will enable Physiotherapists, Physiotherapy clinics and users to locate different Physiotherapy services according to the geographical location. The specific objectives were to create a model of indexing information for Physiotherapists based on their geolocation, personal data, areas of intervention and service agreements; creation of a model of information search; and implementation of a web service that allows indexing and information search of Physiotherapy services for both users and clinicians, based on this various parameters.There are many needs among decision makers regarding the modelling and presentation of health information for better understanding of the phenomena and better management of all resources. The geolocation (Web-based mapping) stands out as an important tool that allows users through systems like Google Maps or Yahoo Maps to access, acknowledge and manage services or monitoring diseases or epidemics. In the context of health care these systems allow a better allocation of resources by health systems as well as a selection and more informed choice by the users.The system methodology involved several stages: 1º Step: the list of requirements was create with the assistance of a group of Physiotherapists, it was determined the set of information considered useful to the end user when viewing the system, including: General information - Physiotherapist personal data, including relevant contacts; Clinical Information - refers to the types of available valances within Physiotherapy services; Administrative Information - refers to agreements and contracts with external entities. The definition of data took into account the end user, the vocabulary was adapted for Physiotherapists and users. 2º Step: Design, system architecture and the creation of the system interface, in both frontend and backend, we opted for the PHP language for the management system and MySQL for the database. 3º Step: The system was set up in a subdomain with its own web access in the last phase of implementation. Users of the system were divided into two types: User looking for Physiotherapy services - this includes patients and other Physiotherapists who refer their clients to other services and users seeking to advertise their Physiotherapy services - this includes Physiotherapists and clinics wishing to register their information on the system aiming to facilitate contacts.Several benefits of using this system were described, including easy management and availability of geographical information for patients and other health professionals, that could promote a possible decrease in costs, time and resources saving, both human and economic in health services access.Today, ICT are increasingly present in the practice of the Physiotherapist, covering new areas and putting at their disposal a wide range of solutions and tools for clinical practice. This system will enable Physiotherapists, Physiotherapy clinics and users to locate different Physiotherapy services, fostering an environment of increasingly shared and equal access to care facilities.N/

Ecophysiological potential of the Dão terroir for the production of Touriga Nacional red grapes

Proceedings - IX International Terroir Congress, 2012Aiming to evaluate the potential of the portuguese Dão winegrowing region for the production of Touriga Nacional (TN) red grapes, climatic, ecophysiological and viticultural data from two different climatic years (2004, wet year and 2005, dry year) are presented and discussed. The data was collected in the control non-irrigated plants of an irrigation experiment installed at the Dão Research Station, Nelas, Portugal. The vineyard is established in a typical granitic soil and trained on a vertical shoot positioning. According to the Géoviticulture Multicriteria Climatic Classification System, the Dão region is classified as temperate/temperate warm for the heliothermal index, with cool nights (night cold index) and moderately dry (dryness index). In 2004 the predawn leaf water potential presented always values higher than -0.2 MPa from flowering to harvest but in 2005 moderate to severe water stress was observed during the ripening period (-0.4 MPa at veraison to -0.6 MPa at harvest). Leaf stomatal conductance and photosynthetic rate displayed a decreasing pattern from flowering to harvest in both years but attained much lower values in the 2005 ripening period as compared to that of 2004. The yield was similar in both years but 2005 showed lower sugar content, similar titratable acidity and a higher anthocyanin berry skin content. Our data shows that the Dão terroir presents a high inter-annual climate variability which has important repercussions on TN responses being the most unfavorable climatic years those were the high temperatures are coincident with water stress during the first half of the ripening period. In those years irrigation should be applied in order to obtain better quality grapes

Knowledge and attitude towards the gradual reduction of salt in bread – an online survey

Aim: Assess knowledge and attitude towards the gradual reduction of salt in bread and the potential impact on eating habits of children (6-18 years) and their families, as part as a Health Impact Assessment pilot study.N/

The role of bacteria in pine wilt disease: insights from microbiome analysis.

Pine Wilt Disease (PWD) has a significant impact on Eurasia pine forests. The microbiome of the nematode (the primary cause of the disease), its insect vector, and the host tree may be relevant for the disease mechanism. The aim of this study was to characterize these microbiomes, from three PWD-affected areas in Portugal, using Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis, 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing, and a functional inference-based approach (PICRUSt). The bacterial community structure of the nematode was significantly different from the infected trees but closely related to the insect vector, supporting the hypothesis that the nematode microbiome might be in part inherited from the insect. Sampling location influenced mostly the tree microbiome (P < 0.05). Genes related both with plant growth promotion and phytopathogenicity were predicted for the tree microbiome. Xenobiotic degradation functions were predicted in the nematode and insect microbiomes. Phytotoxin biosynthesis was also predicted for the nematode microbiome, supporting the theory of a direct contribution of the microbiome to tree-wilting. This is the first study that simultaneously characterized the nematode, tree and insect-vector microbiomes from the same affected areas, and overall the results support the hypothesis that the PWD microbiome plays an important role in the disease's development

A Dimensional Reduction Algorithm and Software for Acyclically Dependent Constraints

For discrete equations of motion with acyclic equality constraints and within the context of the null-space method, an original Algorithm is introduced. By first permuting and then topologically ordering the degrees-of-freedom in the constraint gradient matrix, the saddle point problem can be solved with a sparse triangular system for the constraint equations. In this work, we show that saddle problems resulting from constrained (nonlinear) mechanical problems can always be set in this form, with constraint pivots being selected a priori. Given n discrete motion equations and m equality constraints, the original square sparse (n+m)2 ( n + m ) 2 system is replaced by a sparse system (n−m)2 ( n − m ) 2 and a sparse triangular solve with m2 coefficients and n – m right-hand sides. This triangular solve, which involves three sparse matrices (in existing literature only two of the three matrices are sparse), is here discussed in detail. Seven sparse operations are addressed (five standard and two nonstandard) in addition to some specific ad-hoc operations. Algorithms, source code and examples are presented in this work

A modeling domain-specific language for IoT-enabled operating systems

With the increased complexity of low-end devices in the Internet of Things (IoT), mainly due to the connectivity and interoperability requirements, the development and configuration of embedded operating systems (OSes) for such devices is not straight forward. The complexity of the communication requirements is usually mitigated by the OS, e.g., the Contiki-OS, as it already incorporates an IoT-compliant network stack. Yet, the configuration of such stack requires major knowledge on the code structure, leading to additional development time, particularly when the network comprises several wireless nodes and individual configurations with subsequent firmware that needs to be generated. Based on a developed software modeling domain-specific language, this paper presents the EL4IoT framework. It aims to reduce and ease the development time by promoting a design automation tool that can configure, and automatically generate code (ready to compile) for low-end IoT devices running the Contiki-OS. Although leveraging the whole Contiki-OS modeling, this work only refactored and modeled the network stack while approaching the OS itself as one big building block or component. The proposed approach can be extended to other IoT-enabled OSes as well as integrated in other design automation tools.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013. Tiago Gomes is supported by FCT PhD grant SFRH/BD/90162/2012

Physical activity during pregnancy and its effects on fetal parameters in the second trimester

The physical activity (PA) during pregnancy still remains controversial due to the risk and protective effects on the fetal parameters (cephalic perimeter, abdominal perimeter, femur length and fetal weight). The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that pregnant women do, at least, 150 weekly minutes of moderate PA during a week (WK). This study aimed to (1) verify the relation between the accomplishment of ACSM guidelines PA and the maternal individual characteristics; (2) verify the relation between accomplishment of these guidelines and the fetal parameters in the second trimester. Prospective study was conducted at Hospital S. João, with a sample of 137 pregnant women. Socio-demographic characteristics and lifestyle factors were assessed via questionnaire. PA was assessed by accelerometry (used for 7 consecutive days) in the second trimester (20–22 weeks). The fetal parameters were assessed by ultrasound between the 20th and 22nd gestational week, always by the same medical. No relation was found between the participants’ individual characteristics and the accomplishment of the ACSM’s recommendations, with p-value for all the variables being >0.05. There is no difference between the fetal parameters in the second trimester of the women who follow the recommendations (p>0.05). The pregnant women’s individual characteristics were not related with the accomplishment of the ACSM’s recommendations. Any relation between the recommendations accomplishment and the fetal parameters in the second trimester was not found and no negative influence was found in the same parameters.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The importance of lizards and small mammals as reservoirs for Borrelia lusitaniae in Portugal

Borrelia lusitaniae is a pathogen frequent in the Mediterranean area. Apart from lizards, evidence for birds and small mammals as competent reservoirs for this genospecies has been occasional. We collected questing ticks, skin biopsies and Ixodes sp. ticks feeding on lizards, birds and small mammals in a B. burgdorferi s.l. enzootic area to assess their importance in the maintenance of B. lusitaniae. B. lusitaniae was the most prevalent genospecies in questing ticks and was commonly found in larvae feeding on Psammodromus algirus. One biopsy infected with B. lusitaniae was collected from the tail of one Podarcis hispanica, which suggests systemic infection. I. ricinus larvae feeding on Apodemus sylvaticus were infected with B. lusitaniae but with a lower prevalence. Our results reinforce the importance of lizards as reservoirs for B. lusitaniae, suggesting that P. algirus, in particular, acts as main reservoir for B. lusitaniae in Portugal