Um Avaliador Automático de Eficiência de Algoritmos para Ambientes Educacionais de Ensino de Programação

Existem características importantes que devem ser observadas no projeto de algoritmos que são fundamentais no seu uso, uma delas é a eficiência. Portanto, se torna necessário que esse aspecto seja enfatizado durante o processo de ensino e aprendizagem de algoritmos. Este trabalho propõe uma solução automática para a medição da eficiência dos algoritmos através da implementação de um componente que adota métodos matemáticos que combinam o uso de análise experimental e assintótica para avaliar a complexidade dos algoritmos. Este componente foi desenvolvido e testado para o IGED e MOCCA, ferramentas educacionais para ensino de algoritmos e estrutura de dados. Em nossos experimentos computacionais obtemos uma análise assintótica efetiva sobre sete algoritmos clássicos

Comparative Genomic Analysis of Human Fungal Pathogens Causing Paracoccidioidomycosis

Paracoccidioides is a fungal pathogen and the cause of paracoccidioidomycosis, a health-threatening human systemic mycosis endemic to Latin America. Infection by Paracoccidioides, a dimorphic fungus in the order Onygenales, is coupled with a thermally regulated transition from a soil-dwelling filamentous form to a yeast-like pathogenic form. To better understand the genetic basis of growth and pathogenicity in Paracoccidioides, we sequenced the genomes of two strains of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis (Pb03 and Pb18) and one strain of Paracoccidioides lutzii (Pb01). These genomes range in size from 29.1 Mb to 32.9 Mb and encode 7,610 to 8,130 genes. To enable genetic studies, we mapped 94% of the P. brasiliensis Pb18 assembly onto five chromosomes. We characterized gene family content across Onygenales and related fungi, and within Paracoccidioides we found expansions of the fungal-specific kinase family FunK1. Additionally, the Onygenales have lost many genes involved in carbohydrate metabolism and fewer genes involved in protein metabolism, resulting in a higher ratio of proteases to carbohydrate active enzymes in the Onygenales than their relatives. To determine if gene content correlated with growth on different substrates, we screened the non-pathogenic onygenale Uncinocarpus reesii, which has orthologs for 91% of Paracoccidioides metabolic genes, for growth on 190 carbon sources. U. reesii showed growth on a limited range of carbohydrates, primarily basic plant sugars and cell wall components; this suggests that Onygenales, including dimorphic fungi, can degrade cellulosic plant material in the soil. In addition, U. reesii grew on gelatin and a wide range of dipeptides and amino acids, indicating a preference for proteinaceous growth substrates over carbohydrates, which may enable these fungi to also degrade animal biomass. These capabilities for degrading plant and animal substrates suggest a duality in lifestyle that could enable pathogenic species of Onygenales to transfer from soil to animal hosts.National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (U.S.)National Institutes of Health. Department of Health and Human Services (contract HHSN266200400001C)National Institutes of Health. Department of Health and Human Services(contract HHSN2722009000018C)Brazil. National Council for Scientific and Technological Developmen

PLANE: A Platform for Negotiation of Multi-attribute Multimedia Objects

This work proposes the definition of a system to negotiate products in an e-commerce scenario. This negotiation system is defined as PLANE – Platform to Assist Negotiation – and it is carried in a semi-automatic way, using multi-attributes functions, based on attributes of the negotiated content. It also presents an architecture to interconnect the participant through an inter-network in the television broadcasters context. Each participant of the inter-network applies policies for its own contents, and all of them must comply these policies. If a participant needs a content not covered by the policies, it is possible to start a negotiation process for this specific content. Experiments present a simulation scenario where PLANE assists the negotiation between three sellers and one buyer with predefined negotiation profiles. Results demonstrated the success of the system in approximate the negotiator after some few interactions, reducing time and cost

A Novel Approach for Brushless DC Motors Characterization in Drones Based on Chaos

A novel technique named Signal Analysis based on Chaos using Density of Maxima (SAC-DM) is presented to analyze Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors behavior. These motors are vastly used in electric vehicles, especially in Drones. The proposed approach is compared with the traditional Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT) and the experiments analyzing a BLDC motor of a drone demonstrates similar results but computationally simpler than that. The main contribution of this technique is the possibility to analyze signals in time domain, instead of the frequency domain. It is possible to identify working and faulty behavior with less computational resources than the traditional approach

Environment for integration of distributed heterogeneous computing systems

Abstract Connecting multiple and heterogeneous hardware devices to solve problems raises some challenges, especially in terms of interoperability and communications management. A distributed solution may offer many advantages, like easy use of dispersed resources in a network and potential increase in processing power and data transfer speed. However, integrating devices from different architectures might not be an easy task. This work deals with the synchronization of heterogeneous and distributed hardware devices. For this purpose, a loosely coupled computing platform named Virtual Bus is presented as main contribution of this work. In order to provide interoperability with legacy systems, the IEEE 1516 standard (denoted HLA - High Level Architecture) is used. As proof of concept, Virtual Bus was used to integrate three different computing architectures, a multi-core CPU, a GPU and a board with an Altera FPGA and an ARM processor, which execute a remote image processing application that requires a communication between the devices. All components are managed by Virtual Bus. This proposal simplify the coding efforts to integrate heterogeneous distributed devices and results demonstrated the successful data exchanging and synchronization among all devices, proving its feasibility

Misfire Detection in Automotive Engines Using a Smartphone through Wavelet and Chaos Analysis

Besides the failures that cause accidents, there are the ones responsible for preventing the car’s motion capacity. These failures cause inconveniences to the passengers and expose them to the dangers of the road. Although modern vehicles are equipped with a failure detection system, it does not provide an online approach to the drivers. Third-party devices and skilled labor are necessary to manage the data for failure characterization. One of the most common failures in engines is called misfire, and it happens when the spark is weak or inexistent, compromising the whole set. In this work, two algorithms are compared, based on Wavelet Multiresolution Analysis (WMA) and another using an approach performing signal analysis based on Chaos using the density of maxima (SAC-DM) to identify misfare in a combustion engine of a working automotive vehicle. Experimental tests were carried out in a car to validate the techniques for the engine without failure, with failure in one piston, and with two failed pistons. The results made it possible to obtain the failure diagnosis for 100% of the cases for both WMA and SAC-DM methods, but a shorter time window when using the last one