The Prisma System: intelligent agents working on crime pattern analysis supported by geographic information systems

The process of extracting useful knowledge from large databases became one of the tasks of prior importance in today’s organizations. The collection of excessive amount of information makes very difficult its treatment and analysis without appropriated means. Police Departments are real examples of organizations that currently debate themselves with situations involving large volumes of distributed information and requiring effective real time decision making. Some of these situations are critical in the normal Police Department’s activities, namely the ones related to Crime Pattern Analysis. These are concerned with the recognition of spatial and temporal regularities in reported crime and the ability of predict future criminal activity. This is very important due the possibility to provide effective elements to increase patrol actions, improve priority investigations or even perform better public notification. Through the combination of Multi-Agent Systems and Geographic Information Systems technologies we design a computational system Intelligent Crime Pattern Analysis: the Prisma system. It considers a community of intelligent agents, divided essentially into two classes, that will be responsible respectively to populated specialized Data Marts and make Criminal Patterns Identification. With Prisma, Police Departments will be able to examine patterns related to notified incidents and analyze their movement in relation to police initiatives

The good, the bad and the ugly: the fall and resolution of Banco Espírito Santo

This case study – and accompanying teaching note – briefly describes the history of the Espírito Santo family, a banking dynasty who led one of Portugal’s leading economic and financial groups, along with its “crown jewel”, Banco Espírito Santo. It chronicles how the corporate governance issues at BES allowed the family to exploit the bank, its shareholders and its customers, so as to support its unprofitable non-financial businesses. This left the bank in a poor financial situation, which deteriorated beyond control, leaving regulators – whose actions are also analysed here – with no alternative, amidst a severe liquidity crisis, but to apply a resolution measure, pinning large losses on junior bondholders and shareholders before recapitalising the bank.UNL - NSB

Special issue on Big Data and digital transformation

[Excerpt] The world we live in is more and more of a digital nature. Nowadays, more than ever, we are witnessing a fundamental trend - technological innovations are continuously appearing and rapidly made available to everyone. These have a huge impact on people, who, for the most, easily adhere to and use them, not only in their personal lives, but also at work. At the enterprise level, easy access to global markets and new ways of working and conducting business becomes possible due to technological innovations, leading to innovative business models. Similarly, governments, municipalities and public organizations are developing new ways to reach the citizens and interact with them, in manners that were impossible to foresee a few years ago. All these changes, fueled by the continuous stream of technological innovations, are widely known as Digital Transformation. [...]- (undefined

Cross-Cultural Adaption of the GRBAS and CAPE-V Scales for Portugal and a New Training Programme for Perceptual Voice Evaluation

Several methods have been proposed for the perceptual evaluation of voice quality, but the GRBAS and Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) scales are the most widely used and recommended as part of standardised voice evaluation protocols. In this study, cross-cultural adaptation and translation of the GRBAS (the first translation from the original Japanese version) and CAPE-V scales to European Portuguese were carried out following international guidelines. Results from a study of the intra- and inter-rater reliability of the perceptual evaluation of voices with the GRBAS and CAPE-V scales, before and after a training programme, designed according to the most recent American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Japan Society of Logopedics and Phoniatrics guidelines, are also reported

Resistance to recombinant human erythropoietin therapy in haemodialysis patients: Focus on inflammatory cytokines, leukocyte activation, iron status and erythrocyte damage

Anaemia is a common complication in haemodialysis patients. This condition is associated to a decreased bone marrow production of erythrocytes, mainly due to the inability of the failing kidneys to secrete erythropoietin (EPO). The introduction of recombinant human EPO (rhEPO) therapy led to a significant reduction in anaemia and improved patients’ quality of life. However, there is a marked variability in the sensitivity to rhEPO, with up to 10-fold variability in dose requirements to achieve correction of anaemia. Approximately 5-10% of the patients show a marked resistance to rhEPO therapy. rhEPO resistance is associated to an increased morbidity and mortality of haemodialysis patients. In this paper a revision of the mechanisms underlying resistance to rhEPO therapy will be performed, with particular emphasis on inflammatory cytokines, leukocyte activation, iron status, and erythrocyte damage

The HIF System Response to ESA Therapy in CKD‐Anemia

Anemia is a common complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) associated with disease progression and increased mortality. This anemia is mainly due to inadequate production of erythropoietin (EPO) by the failing kidneys, resulting from the reduction in renal EPO‐producing cells (REPC) or from dysregulation of the hypoxia‐inducible factor (HIF) system that regulates several genes related to hypoxia, angiogenesis, fibrosis and glucose metabolism, among others. In this chapter, we present a review on the HIF system in CKD‐anemia, the HIF response to erythropoiesis‐stimulating agents (ESA) therapy and its potential involvement in the development of ESA resistance by enhancing kidney fibrosis and inflammation. Due to concerns related to ESA use, new drugs to correct anemia are under study, being the prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors the most promising candidates

Hereditary spherocytosis and the (TA)nTAA polymorphism of UGT1A1 gene promoter region: a comparison of the bilirubin plasmatic levels in the different clinical forms

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Avaliação da eficácia de dois protocolos de assepsia pré-cirúrgica da pele como medida preventiva de infeções do local cirúrgico em Canis familiaris

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina VeterináriaA assepsia pré-cirúrgica da pele é uma das medidas preventivas de infeções do local cirúrgico. A maioria das infeções do local cirúrgico é provocada por agentes comensais e patogénicos provenientes da microbiota do doente. O aumento da disseminação de bactérias resistentes a antibióticos é uma realidade atual. A lâmina de bisturi poderá constituir um fomite de contaminação exógena de bactérias, veiculando-as para o interior do local cirúrgico. Os objetivos do presente estudo foram 1) avaliar a eficácia de dois protocolos de assepsia pré-cirúrgica da pele e 2) avaliar o papel da lâmina de bisturi como fomite de bactérias para os órgãos internos. Utilizou-se uma amostra de 46 canídeos (N=46), escolhidos aleatoriamente e divididos em 2 grupos de acordo com o protocolo de assepsia utilizado: solução aquosa de iodopovidona a 7,5% ou solução alcoólica de clorexidina a 2%. Para cada indivíduo foram recolhidas três amostras em tempos diferentes: pré-assepsia (to), pós-assepsia (t1) e lâmina de bisturi após incisão da pele (t2). A quantificação e identificação da microbiota utilizou os meios de cultura BHI agar e MRSA agar cromogénico modificado. As espécies de staphylococci foram identificadas recorrendo a API® staph. A distribuição das reduções logarítmicas promovidas por ambos os antissépticos foi muito semelhante, não apresentando diferenças estatisticamente significativas, sugerindo que ambos os protocolos apresentam eficácia semelhante na assepsia e na eliminação de bactérias resistentes à meticilina em cirurgia veterinária, especificamente em canídeos.ABSTRACT - EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TWO PRE-SURGICAL SKIN ASEPSIS PROTOCOLS AS A PREVENTIVE MEASURE OF SURGICAL SITE INFECTIONS IN CANIS FAMILIARIS - The skin pre-surgical asepsis is one of the preventive measures of the surgical site infections. Most of these infections are caused by commensal and pathogenic agents from the patient’s microbiota. The increase in the dissemination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a current topic. The surgical blade could constitute a source of exogenous contamination of bacteria to the interior of the surgical site. The objectives of this study were 1) evaluating the effectiveness of two pre-surgical skin asepsis protocols and 2) evaluate the presence of bacteria in the surgical blade. A sample of 46 dogs (N=46) was studied, which were randomly assigned for an asepsis protocol with aqueous solution of 7,5% povidone-iodine or for a protocol based on an alcoholic solution of 2% chlorhexidine. For each dog, three samples were collected at different times: pre-asepsis (t0), post-asepsis (t1) and surgical blade (t2) after skin incision. For the quantification and identification of the microbiota, were used the BHI agar and the MRSA agar modified chromogenic mediums, respectively. The staphylococci species were identified using API® Staph. The logaritmic reduction promoted by both antiseptics was very similar, not representing statistically significant differences, suggesting that both protocols present similar effectiveness in surgical asepsis and in the elimination of methicillin resistant bacteria in veterinary surgery, specifically in dogs.N/