Revisiting the statistical isotropy of GRB sky distribution

The assumption of homogeneity and isotropy on large scales is one of the main hypotheses of the standard cosmology. In this paper, we test the hypothesis of isotropy from the two-point angular correlation function of 2626 gamma-ray bursts (GRB) of the FERMI GRB catalogue. We show that the uncertainties in the GRB positions induce spurious anisotropic signals in their sky distribution. However, when such uncertainties are taken into account no significant evidence against the large-scale statistical isotropy is found. This result remains valid even for the sky distribution of short-lived GRB, contrarily to previous reports.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, match accepted versio

Assessing the impact of sulfur concentrations on growth and biochemical composition of three marine microalgae

The elemental stoichiometry, growth and biochemical composition of Nannochloropsis gaditana, Rhodomonas marina and Isochrysis sp. were studied in batch cultures against different nitrogen and sulfur molar ratios (N:S) imposed in their surroundings. In N. gaditana, treatments with low N:S lead to an increase in carbon:sulfur (C:S) and N:S molar ratios up to 95 and 81%, respectively. This was reflected in lipid and protein contents which increased up to 67 and 55%, respectively. Moreover, polyunsaturated fatty acids, as well as its precursors, increased in low N/S treatments. In R. marina, the treatments applied promptly the decrease of both C:S and N:S ratios to 70 and 68%, respectively. Nevertheless, eicosapentaenoic:arachidonic acid ratio increased with N:S treatments by three and a half fold. In Isochrysis sp., the elemental stoichiometry was constrained against treatments until the highest sulfur input. Overall, sulfur supply highlighted microalgae taxonomic differences and suggested that biochemical control is required, even in nutrient replete conditions, to fully exploit their potential as added value biomachineries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Marine microalgae growth and carbon partitioning as a function of nutrient availability

To understand in which way the structural differences of three marine microalgae (Nannochloropsis gaditana, Rhodomonas marina and Isochrysis sp.) affect their carbon partitioning, growth and applicability; a stoichiometric imbalance was imposed by steady carbon and other nutrients variation. Towards high nutrients concentrations/low carbon availability a decrease of 12-51% in C/N microalgae ratio was observed and maximum cell densities were achieved. Moreover, linear correlation between the nutrient input and microalgae protein content were observed. The macromolecular ratios pointed that carbohydrate was the main contributor for the C/N decrement. Although lipid content in R. marina remained constant throughout the experiment, a rise of 37-107% in N. gaditana and Isochrysis sp. was verified. Lipid fractions revealed high percentages of glycolipids in all microalgae (57-73% of total lipids). The present study shows an easy way to understand and modulate microalgae carbon partitioning relying on the field of application.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Human Mobility in Large Cities as a Proxy for Crime

We investigate at the subscale of the neighborhoods of a highly populated city the incidence of property crimes in terms of both the resident and the floating population. Our results show that a relevant allometric relation could only be observed between property crimes and floating population. More precisely, the evidence of a superlinear behavior indicates that a disproportional number of property crimes occurs in regions where an increased flow of people takes place in the city. For comparison, we also found that the number of crimes of peace disturbance only correlates well, and in a superlinear fashion too, with the resident population. Our study raises the interesting possibility that the superlinearity observed in previous studies [Bettencourt et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 7301 (2007) and Melo et al., Sci. Rep. 4, 6239 (2014)] for homicides versus population at the city scale could have its origin in the fact that the floating population, and not the resident one, should be taken as the relevant variable determining the intrinsic microdynamical behavior of the system.Comment: 17 pages, 8 Figure

Intelligent event broker: a complex event processing system in big data contexts

In Big Data contexts, many batch and streaming oriented technologies have emerged to deal with the high valuable sources of events, such as Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, the Web, several types of databases, among others. The huge amount of heterogeneous data being constantly generated by a world of interconnected things and the need for (semi)-automated decision-making processes through Complex Event Processing (CEP) and Machine Learning (ML) have raised the need for innovative architectures capable of processing events in a streamlined, scalable, analytical, and integrated way. This paper presents the Intelligent Event Broker, a CEP system built upon flexible and scalable Big Data techniques and technologies, highlighting its system architecture, software packages, and classes. A demonstration case in Bosch’s Industry 4.0 context is presented, detailing how the system can be used to manage and improve the quality of the manufacturing process, showing its usefulness for solving real-world event-oriented problems.This work has been supported by FCT –Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologiawithin the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019 and the Doctoral scholarship PD/BDE/135101/2017. This paper uses icons made by Freepik, from www.flaticon.com

Marine microalgae monosaccharide fluctuations as a stress response to nutrients inputs

The monosaccharide patterns of the microalgae species Nannochloropsis gaditana, Rhodomonas marina and Isochrysis sp. were assessed, to verify if nutrients availability had an impact on these parameters. Isochrysis sp. and Rhodomonas marina monosaccharides content decreased 13–94% as the nutrients availability increased. The relative abundance of monosaccharides depicted that, at low nutrients availabilities, Rhodomonas marina and Isochrysis sp. had preference for glucans synthesis, accounting for up to 75% of the monosaccharides detected. Linking the monosaccharides trends with the phylogeny and glycolipid data, it was possible to establish which monosaccharides had a structural and/or storage role in the microalgae studied. Thermal analysis revealed that the microalgae submitted to low nutrient input treatments presented a reduced assimilation of the inorganic compounds. Nutrient concentrations affected microalgae monosaccharide patterns, highlighting their taxonomic differences.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dietary protein, growth, nutrient utilization and body composition of juvenile blackspot seabream, Pagellus bogaraveo (Brunnich)

When considering new marine species for Mediterranean aquaculture, blackspot seabream emerges as a potential candidate. However, there are scarce data on the nutritional requirements and optimal growth conditions of this species. A 12-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary protein on growth, nutrient utilization and body composition of blackspot seabream (23 g). Five isolipidic diets (12%) with graded levels of protein (20-60%) were distributed, twice a day, to duplicate groups of fish, until satiation. Growth increased significantly with increasing dietary protein up to 40%, but higher protein levels induced a similar daily growth index (1.4). Feed conversion ratio (FCR) decreased with increasing levels of dietary protein (4.2-1.6). No significant differences were detected in protein of whole body blackspot seabream among treatments, but fat percentage decreased with increasing dietary protein. Dry matter and energy digestibility showed a concomitant increase with the reduction in dietary wheat meal, attaining maximal values with high protein diets. These results suggested that the most favourable values for growth and FCR are obtained with diets containing 40% protein. However, the excessive lipid deposition reveals that more nutritional studies are necessary before the species can be established in aquaculture

Allocation of control resources for machine-to-machine and human-to-human communications over LTE/LTE-A networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm stands for virtually interconnected objects that are identifiable and equipped with sensing, computing, and communication capabilities. Services and applications over the IoT architecture can take benefit of the long-term evolution (LTE)/LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), cellular networks to support machine-type communication (MTC). Moreover, it is paramount that MTC do not affect the services provided for traditional human-type communication (HTC). Although previous studies have evaluated the impact of the number of MTC devices on the quality of service (QoS) provided to HTC users, none have considered the joint effect of allocation of control resources and the LTE random-access (RA) procedure. In this paper, a novel scheme for resource allocation on the packet downlink (DL) control channel (PDCCH) is introduced. This scheme allows PDCCH scheduling algorithms to consider the resources consumed by the random-access procedure on both control and data channels when prioritizing control messages. Three PDCCH scheduling algorithms considering RA-related control messages are proposed. Moreover, the impact of MTC devices on QoS provisioning to HTC traffic is evaluated. Results derived via simulation show that the proposed PDCCH scheduling algorithms can improve the QoS provisioning and that MTC can strongly impact on QoS provisioning for real-time traffic.The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm stands for virtually interconnected objects that are identifiable and equipped with sensing, computing, and communication capabilities. Services and applications over the IoT architecture can take benefit of the long-33366377CAPES - COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIORCNPQ - CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICOsem informaçãosem informaçã

Can the angular scale of cosmic homogeneity be used as a cosmological test?

In standard cosmology, the cosmic homogeneity scale is the transition scale above which the patterns arising from non-uniformities -- such as groups and clusters of galaxies, voids, and filaments -- become indistinguishable from a random distribution of sources. Recently, different groups have investigated the feasibility of using such a scale as a cosmological test and arrived at different conclusions. In this paper, we complement and extend these studies by exploring the evolution of the spatial (${\cal{R}}_H$) and angular ($\theta_H$) homogeneity scales with redshift, assuming a spatially flat, $\Lambda$-Cold Dark Matter %($\Lambda$CDM) universe and linear cosmological perturbation theory. We confirm previous results concerning the non-monotonicity of ${\cal{R}}_H$ with the matter density parameter $\Omega_{m0}$ but also show that it exhibits a monotonical behavior with the Hubble constant $H_0$ within a large redshift interval. More importantly, we find that, for $z \gtrsim 0.6$, the angular homogeneity scale not only presents a monotonical behavior with $\Omega_{m0}$ and $H_0$ but is quite sensitive to $H_0$, especially at higher redshifts. These results, therefore, raise the possibility of using $\theta_H$ as a new, model-independent way to constrain cosmological parameters.Comment: 10 pages, 24 figure