Meat yield of Bolinus brandaris (Gastropoda: Muricidae): comparative assessment of the influence of sex, size and reproductive status

The present study assessed the influence of sex, size and reproductive status on the meat yield (soft tissues proportion) of the purple dye murex (Bolinus brandaris) from the Ria Formosa lagoon (southern Portugal). During one year of monthly sampling (October 2008-September 2009), average meat yield of B. brandaris was 40.5 +/- 6.1% (range: 25.8-56.1% wet weight), with no significant differences between sexes. Relationships established between specimen size and soft parts weight indicated that both shell length and total weight are excellent indicators of meat yield. Significant differences in meat yield between size classes further reinforced the trend of increasing meat yield during ontogeny. Meat yield exhibited significant monthly variation and a similar temporal trend in both sexes, which were directly related to the reproductive status. Meat yield of B. brandaris was compared with that of other muricid species and the marked influence of the reproductive status on meat yield prompted a comparative assessment of the spawning season and peak of three sympatric muricids (B. brandaris, Hexaplex trunculus and Stramonita haemastoma). Overall, these findings have implications at diverse levels, including the management, regulation and inspection of this fishing/ harvesting activity and the commercialization and consumption of this seafood product.postdoctoral grant [SFRH/BPD/26348/2006]; Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT - Portugal); Fisheries Operational Programme (PROMAR); European Fisheries Fund [EFF 2007-2013]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Practices and trends of telework in the Portuguese industry: the results of surveys in the textile, metal and software sectors

The aim of the TeleRisk Project on labour relations and professional risks within the context of teleworking in Portugal – supported by IDICT – Institute for Development and Inspection of Working Conditions (Ministry of Labour), is to study the practices and forms of teleworking in the manufacturing sectors in Portugal. The project chose also the software industry as a reference sector, even though it does not intend to exclude from the study any other sector of activity or the so-called “hybrid” forms of work. However, the latter must have some of the characteristics of telework. The project thus takes into account the so-called “traditional” sectors of activity, namely textile and machinery and metal engineering (machinery and equipment), not usually associated to this type of work. However, telework could include, in the so-called “traditional” sectors, other variations that are not found in technologically based sectors. One of the evaluation methods for the dynamics associated to telework consisted in carrying out surveys by means of questionnaires, aimed at employers in the sectors analysed. This paper presents some of the results of those surveys. It is important to mention that, being a preliminary analysis, it means that it does not pretend to have exhausted all the issues in the survey, but has meant that it shows the bigger tendencies, in terms of teleworking practices, of the Portuguese industry.teleworking; organisation of work; Portugal; manufacturing

Stellar population synthesis models between 2.5 and 5 {\mu}m based on the empirical IRTF stellar library

We present the first single-burst stellar population models in the infrared wavelength range between 2.5 and 5 {\mu}m which are exclusively based on empirical stellar spectra. Our models take as input 180 spectra from the stellar IRTF (Infrared Telescope Facility) library. Our final single-burst stellar population models are calculated based on two different sets of isochrones and various types of initial mass functions of different slopes, ages larger than 1 Gyr and metallicities between [Fe/H] = -0.70 and 0.26. They are made available online to the scientific community on the MILES web page. We analyse the behaviour of the Spitzer [3.6]-[4.5] colour calculated from our single stellar population models and find only slight dependences on both metallicity and age. When comparing to the colours of observed early-type galaxies, we find a good agreement for older, more massive galaxies that resemble a single-burst population. Younger, less massive and more metal-poor galaxies show redder colours with respect to our models. This mismatch can be explained by a more extended star formation history of these galaxies which includes a metal-poor or/and young population. Moreover, the colours derived from our models agree very well with most other models available in this wavelength range. We confirm that the mass-to-light ratio determined in the Spitzer [3.6] {\mu}m band changes much less as a function of both age and metallicity than in the optical bands.Comment: 25 pages, 19 figures, published in MNRAS, models can be downloaded from http://miles.iac.e

MILES extended: Stellar population synthesis models from the optical to the infrared

We present the first single-burst stellar population models which covers the optical and the infrared wavelength range between 3500 and 50000 Angstrom and which are exclusively based on empirical stellar spectra. To obtain these joint models, we combined the extended MILES models in the optical with our new infrared models that are based on the IRTF (Infrared Telescope Facility) library. The latter are available only for a limited range in terms of both age and metallicity. Our combined single-burst stellar population models were calculated for ages larger than 1 Gyr, for metallicities between [Fe/H] = -0.40 and 0.26, for initial mass functions of various types and slopes, and on the basis of two different sets of isochrones. They are available to the scientific community on the MILES web page. We checked the internal consistency of our models and compared their colour predictions to those of other models that are available in the literature. Optical and near infrared colours that are measured from our models are found to reproduce the colours well that were observed for various samples of early-type galaxies. Our models will enable a detailed analysis of the stellar populations of observed galaxies.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, published in A&

DC-Prophet: Predicting Catastrophic Machine Failures in DataCenters

When will a server fail catastrophically in an industrial datacenter? Is it possible to forecast these failures so preventive actions can be taken to increase the reliability of a datacenter? To answer these questions, we have studied what are probably the largest, publicly available datacenter traces, containing more than 104 million events from 12,500 machines. Among these samples, we observe and categorize three types of machine failures, all of which are catastrophic and may lead to information loss, or even worse, reliability degradation of a datacenter. We further propose a two-stage framework-DC-Prophet-based on One-Class Support Vector Machine and Random Forest. DC-Prophet extracts surprising patterns and accurately predicts the next failure of a machine. Experimental results show that DC-Prophet achieves an AUC of 0.93 in predicting the next machine failure, and a F3-score of 0.88 (out of 1). On average, DC-Prophet outperforms other classical machine learning methods by 39.45% in F3-score.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted by 2017 ECML PKD

Fashion communication in the digital age: findings from interviews with industry professionals and design recommendations

The increased usage of available technologies and communication tools provided by the digital age offers numerous opportunities for fashion brands to connect with consumers. Although this matter is known in the literature, there is still much to explore on how to design digital products and experiences for and with emotion. This study focuses on the experience of eight fashion industry professionals through the use of a semi-structured interview as a research method. The outcomes of this study allowed to identify strategies to elicit emotions and to attain knowledge with respect to digital disruption from the subjects´ perspectives.This work is supported by FSE – European Social Fund, by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology and POCH – Human Capital Operating Programme, within the scope of the project SFRH/BD/129900/2017; project UID/CTM/00264/2019 of 2C2T – Centre for Textile Science and Technology, funded by National Founds through FCT/MCTES and project Lab2PT - Landscapes, Heritage and Territory laboratory - AUR/04509

Touchscreen interactions in the realm of fashion: a users’ perception study

Mobile applications present a wide range of opportunities for fashion brands to connect with the consumer. To the knowledge of the authors, understanding how users perceive touchscreen features is still in an early stage. Part of an ongoing research, this study aims to collect users’ general views about the concept of a digital magazine that explores the potential of the iPad to advertise content. A sentence completion technique was administered to identify positive and negative aspects, as well as to examine emerging themes. The results provide compelling evidence that interactivity has the potential to attract users. This finding is promising, and future studies should explore how brands can take advantage of this type of platforms to engage with their audience.This work is supported by FSE – European Social Fund, by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology and POCH – Human Capital Operating Programme, within the scope of the project SFRH/BD/129900/2017

Inelaticity in hadron-nucleus collisions from emulsion chamber studies

The inelasticity of hadron-carbon nucleus collisions in the energy region exceeding 100 TeV is estimated from the carbon-emulsion chamber data at Pamirs to be $= 0.65\pm 0.08$. When combined with the recently presented data on hadron-lead nucleus collisions taken at the same energy range it results in the $K\sim A^{0.086}$ mass number dependence of inelasticity. The evaluated partial inelasticity for secondary ($\nu > 1$) interactions, $K_{\nu >1} \simeq 0.2$, suggests that the second and higher interactions of the excited hadron inside the nucleus proceed with only slight energy losses.Comment: LaTeX file and 5 LaTeX files with figures, 11 pages altogether. Thoroughly rewritten and modified, one figure addded one removed. To be published in Phys. Rev.

Electroweak Corrections to the Top Quark Decay

We have calculated the one-loop electroweak corrections to the decay t-> bW+, including the counterterm for the CKM matrix elements V(tb). Previous calculations used an incorrect delta V(tb) that led to a gauge dependent amplitude. However, since the contribution stemming from delta V(tb) is small, those calculations only underestimate the width by roughly one part in 10^5.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure