Language and Proofs for Higher-Order SMT (Work in Progress)

Satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) solvers have throughout the years been able to cope with increasingly expressive formulas, from ground logics to full first-order logic modulo theories. Nevertheless, higher-order logic within SMT is still little explored. One main goal of the Matryoshka project, which started in March 2017, is to extend the reasoning capabilities of SMT solvers and other automatic provers beyond first-order logic. In this preliminary report, we report on an extension of the SMT-LIB language, the standard input format of SMT solvers, to handle higher-order constructs. We also discuss how to augment the proof format of the SMT solver veriT to accommodate these new constructs and the solving techniques they require.Comment: In Proceedings PxTP 2017, arXiv:1712.0089

Da arte de conhecer as doenças: o diagnóstico da Economia Mineira de 1968 e o planejamento do desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais

The issue of politically oriented regional development occupies an important place in the Economic History of Minas Gerais during the republican period. Since the start of the 20th century, and throughout the most important transformative stages of the Brazilian economic system, notably between the 1930s and 1960s, overcoming underdevelopment and the peripheral position of the state has been a priority for the elites of Minas. For a variety of reasons that we will attempt to demonstrate, we understand that it is essential to study the Diagnóstico da Economia Mineira, published in 1968, by the Banco de Desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais (BDMG), if the goal is to understand the vicissitudes of the state’s economic development, especially considering the aforementioned priority. This study emphasizes the meaning of this rich document, especially the long-lived institutional relationships and theoretical matrixes that lent it legitimacy and made it suited it to its time. The text is structured in three coplementary parts: i) description and analysis of the document; ii) brief background of developmentism in Minas Gerais during the republican period; iii) presentation of four case studies about the themes of the Diagnóstico: transportation, electric energy, sugar industry and steel making.Minas Gerais, História Econômica, desenvolvimento, planejamento, BDMG

Wireless capsule endoscopic frame classification scheme based on higher order statistics of multi-scale texture descriptors

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is a long tube, prone to all kind of lesions. The traditional endoscopic methods do not reach the entire GI tract. Wireless capsule endoscopy is a diagnostic procedure that allows the visualization of the whole GI tract, acquiring video frames, at a rate of two frames per second, while travels through the GI tract, propelled by peristalsis. These frames possess rich information about the condition of the stomach and intestine mucosa, expressed by color and texture in these images. These vital characteristics of each frame can be extracted by color texture analysis. Since texture information is present as middle and high frequency content in the original image, two new images are synthesized from the discrete wavelet coefficients at the lowest and middle scale of a two level Discrete Wavelet Transform of the original frame. These new synthesized images contain essential texture information, at different scales, which can be extracted from statistical descriptors of the coocurrence matrices, which are second-order representations of the synthesized images that encode color and spatial relationships within the pixels of these new images. Since the human perception of texture is complex, a multi-scale and multicolor process based in the analysis of the spatial color variations relationships, is proposed, as classification features. The multicolor texture information is modeled by the third order moments of the texture descriptors sampled at the different color channels. HSV color space is more related to the perceptive human characteristics, therefore it was used in the ambit of this paper. The multi-scale texture information is modeled by covariance of the texture descriptors within the same color channel of the two synthesized images, which contain texture information at different scales. The features are used in a classification scheme using a multilayer perceptron neural network. The proposed method has been applied in real data taken from several capsule endoscopic exams and reaches 94.6% of sensitivity and 93.7% specificity. These results support the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.Center Algoritm

Multiscale texture descriptors for automatic small bowel tumors detection in capsule endoscopy

Conventional endoscopic exams do not allow the entire visualization of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Push enteroscopy (PE) is an effective diagnostic and therapeutic procedure, although it only allows exploration of the proximal small bowel (Pennazio et al., 1995). Simultaneously, convetional colonoscopy is limited at the terminal ileum. Therefore, prior to the wireless capsule endoscopy era, the small intestine was the conventional endoscopy’s last frontier, because it could not be internally visualized directly or in it’s entirely by any method (Herrerías & Mascarenhas-Saraiva, 2007). The small intestine accounts for 75% of the total length and 90% of the surface area of the gastrointestinal tract. In adults it measures about 570 cm at post mortem, which is substantially longer than conventional video endoscopes (100-180 cm) (Swain & Fritscher-Ravens, 2004). Intraoperative enteroscopy is the most complete but also the most invasive means of examining the small bowel (Gay et al., 1998). Given the technical and medical improvements introduced on the assessment of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, Capsule Endoscopy (CE) is considered as the first major technological innovation in GI diagnostic medicine since the flexible endoscope (Kaffes, 2009). More recently, a new technique, the double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE), has been introduced into clinical practice (Yamamoto & Kita, 2006). DBE has the potential to examine the entire length of the small bowel with biopsy and therapeutic capability. Nevertheless, it is a time consuming procedure that requires specialist training for the operating physician. We should note that DBE and CE are complementary tools and not competitive (Chen et al., 2007). Hence, the diagnostic ease of CE can be complemented with a targeted and often therapeutic DBE (Kaffes, 2009). Therefore, CE can be used as a first line diagnosis method, while DBE can be used as a confirmatory or therapeutic modality for lesions first visualized by CE (Pennazio, 2006). The endoscopic capsule is a pill-like device, with only 11mm x 26 mm, and includes a miniaturized camera, a light source and circuits for the acquisition and wireless transmission of signals (Iddan et al., 2000). As the capsule moves through GI tract, propelled exclusively by peristalsis, it acquires images at a rate of two per second and sends them to a hard disk receiver that is worn in the belt of the patient, in a wireless communication scheme. The acquisition of images is limited by the battery life of the device, usually around eight hours, which imply that in a single CE exam more than 50000 images are acquired. If no complications arise, the capsule should be in the patient’s stool, usually within 24-48 h, and not reused (Pennazio, 2006). Capsule endoscopy has evolved in a few short years to become a first-line, noninvasive diagnostic technique for the small bowel. CE is now being utilized worldwide to assess patients for obscure gastrointestinal bleeding, possible Crohn’s disease, celiac disease and small bowel tumors (Lee & Eisen, 2010). It is now available in over 4500 practice sites around the world (Munoz-Navas, 2009). The time required to a physician to analyze the resulting video is, on average, 40-60 min (Pennazio, 2006). The reading time and interpretation of CE exams is very time consuming given that more than 50,000 images have to be reviewed (Delvaux & Gay, 2006; Mergener et al., 2007), which contributes to the high cost of a CE exam (Westerhof et al., 2009). Thus, a computer assisted diagnosis tool to help the physicians to evaluate CE exams faster and more accurately is an important technical challenge and an excellent economical opportunity.Centre Algoritm

Medición del consumo de combustible en un bus articulado de la empresa Integra S.A operadora del sistema integrado de transporte “Megabús”

Los sistemas de transporte público masivo tipo BRT (por sus siglas en inglés de Bus Rapid Transit) consisten en un sistema en el cual sus flotas cuentan con corredores exclusivos y con características férreas como el pago de pasaje en estaciones, este nuevo sistema de transporte BRT se ha convertido en uno de los medios de movilización más utilizados en Latinoamérica y Centroamérica en países como Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Perú y Paraguay. Este sistema de transporte público actualmente es una opción de gran eficiencia en cuanto a sus costos tanto para los pasajeros como para la empresa operadora, mejorando la movilidad, la capacidad transportadora, la construcción como industria promotora de empleo y otras numerosas variables. Como características principales los BRT se basan en una infraestructura exclusiva, paradas y terminales especiales, vehículos de gran capacidad alrededor de 160 pasajeros, sistema de recaudo, tecnologías de información y comunicación, planes de operación y servicios diferentes a los contemplados en el transporte tradicional. Su primera implementación fue en la década de 1970 en Curitiba – Brasil, como parte de una política general de planificación urbana, es así como se crea el primer sistema BRT llamado URBS - Urbanización Curitiba S.A., posteriormente en Quito – Ecuador en 1995 se comenzó a construir una red de troncales para los sistemas BRT denominada EPQ - Empresa de Pasajeros de Quito, seguido a esto en el 2005 se crea en Bogotá - Colombia el sistema Transmilenio que se ha consolidado como el sistema de transporte referente mundial por su efectividad, cobertura y el éxito en la implementación como uno de los sistemas BRT más grandes del mundo. Gracias al impacto generado por la experiencia del sistema Transmilenio se ha implementado este modelo no solo en otras latitudes geográficas de Colombia sino también en diferentes países latinoamericanos como México, Perú, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, entre otros, notándose una gran expansión y evolución en los sistemas BRT. En algunos de los países anteriormente descritos pueden existir varias ciudades que cuenten con sistemas de transporte público tipo BRT, i.e., se está evidenciando fuertemente un cambio en la manera como las ciudades grandes e intermedias están prestando el servicio de transporte público de pasajeros

Detection of small bowel tumors in endoscopic capsule images by modeling non-gaussianity of texture descriptors

This paper presents an approach to the automatic detection of small bowel tumors by processing endoscopic capsule images. The most significant texture information is selected by using wavelet processing and captured in the image domain from an appropriate synthesized image. Co-occurrence matrices are used to derive texture descriptors by modeling second order statistics of color image levels. These descriptors are then modeled by using third and fourth order moments in order to cope with distributions that tend to become non-Gaussian especially in some pathological cases. The proposed approach is supported by a classifier based on radial basis functions procedure for the characterization of the image regions along the video frames. The whole methodology has been applied on real data and shows that higher order moments can be effective in modeling capsule endoscopic images regarding tumor detection.Centre Algoritm