10 years of experience

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Robustness Assessment with a Data-Centric Machine Learning Pipeline

Publisher Copyright: AuthorAs long as the COVID-19 pandemic is still active in most countries worldwide, rapid diagnostic continues to be crucial to mitigate the impact of seasonal infection waves. Commercialized rapid antigen self-tests proved they cannot handle the most demanding periods, lacking availability and leading to cost rises. Thus, developing a non-invasive, costless, and more decentralized technology capable of giving people feedback about the COVID-19 infection probability would fill these gaps. This paper explores a sound-based analysis of vocal and respiratory audio data to achieve that objective. This work presents a modular data-centric Machine Learning pipeline for COVID-19 identification from voice and respiratory audio samples. Signals are processed to extract and classify relevant segments that contain informative events, such as coughing or breathing. Temporal, amplitude, spectral, cepstral, and phonetic features are extracted from audio along with available metadata for COVID-19 identification. Audio augmentation and data balancing techniques are used to mitigate class disproportionality. The open-access Coswara and COVID-19 Sounds datasets were used to test the performance of the proposed architecture. Obtained sensitivity scores ranged from 60.00% to 80.00% in Coswara and from 51.43% to 77.14% in COVID-19 Sounds. Although previous works report higher accuracy on COVID-19 detection, this research focused on a data-centric approach by validating the quality of the samples, segmenting the speech events, and exploring interpretable features with physiological meaning. As the pandemic evolves, its lessons must endure, and pipelines such as the proposed one will help prepare new stages where quick and easy disease identification is essential.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Estudo climatológico de eventos de nevoeiro no aeroporto Francisco Sá Carneiro

Este trabalho teve como objetivo a caracterização climatológica de eventos de nevoeiro no Aeroporto Francisco Sá Carneiro (2004-2017) utilizando dados de campo, de reanálises e retro trajetórias calculadas pelo modelo HYSPLIT. A maioria dos eventos ocorre nos meses de junho, julho, agosto e setembro (Estação Quente), com cerca de 60% dos eventos, especialmente nestes dois últimos meses. No ciclo diário, observa-se um máximo de frequência de episódios de nevoeiro ao nascer do sol. Os resultados também mostram que os eventos de nevoeiro na Estação Quente estão associados especialmente a WTs (Weather Types) anticiclónicos, com uma frequência acima do terceiro quartil de WTs anticiclónicos obtida por permutação dos anos, em 10000 amostras aleatórias. Verifica-se que existe um enfraquecimento progressivo do vento de noroeste durante as 12h que antecedem a ocorrência de nevoeiro. A análise de clusters das retro trajetórias mostra que existem três direções preferenciais e que estas interagem com águas sucessivamente mais frias ao longo da trajetória. Com as reanálises ERA5, verifica-se que os eventos estão associados a uma forte inversão térmica de baixo nível e que existe um arrefecimento radiativo maior do que a média climatológica da Estação Quente, com um máximo de arrefecimento situado próximo dos 250mThis work aims to study fog events at the Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport (2004- 2017) using reanalysis and observations data and also back-trajectories using HYSPLIT model. Most events occur in the months of June, July, August and September (Warm Season), with 60% of events, especially in the two last months. In the daily cycle, there is a maximum frequency of fog episodes at sunrise. The results show that the fog events in the Warm Season are especially associated with anticyclonic WTs (Weather Types) with a frequency above the third quartile of anticyclonic WTs in 10000 random samples obtained by permutation of years. There is evidence of a weakening of the northwest wind during the 12 hours preceding the fog occurrence. Cluster analysis of the backtrajectories shows that there are three directions of preference and that these interact with successively colder waters along the trajectory. The ERA5 reanalysis show that events are associated with a strong low level thermal inversion and there is a higher radiative cooling than the Warm Season climatological mean, with a maximum cooling around 250mMestrado em Ciências do Mar e da Atmosfer

A score methodology to assess concept maps in medical education in the context of pathophysiology teaching

The main objective of pathophysiology teaching is to facilitate the learning of mechanisms of diseases and the understanding of their expressions in patients (symptoms, signs and tests). This objective requires the application of basic biomedical science to explain the abnormalities expressed by the patients. The capacity to integrate this new organization of knowledge is essential to the understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms, which explain expressions of specific diseases. Our group has a longstanding experience in the teaching of pathophysiology to medical students using problem-based learning (PBL) and concept mapping (CM). This semestral discipline has a yearly intake of 190 students, divided into 18 tutorial groups and supported by 14 tutors. The students’ learning progress is evaluated by their performance during the tutorial sessions and the CM methodology has been introduced as an additional tool to visualize the integration of knowledge and how it is displayed in the different pathophysiological mechanisms. Until now, the evaluation of CM has been qualitative and used as an additional assessment tool by the tutors. This study reports how we are changing this approach by training the tutors and developing a scoring methodology, which will be described in detail, together with a preliminary application in selected mapsFonseca, M.; Oliveira, B.; Carreiro-Martins, P.; Neuparth, N.; Rendas, A. (2020). A score methodology to assess concept maps in medical education in the context of pathophysiology teaching. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):867-874. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.11163OCS86787430-05-202

A narrative review

Funding Information: João Gaspar Marques has received research grants from AstraZeneca and honorarium as speaker/consultant from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Sanofi and TEVA. Mafalda van Zeller has received honorarium as speaker/consultant from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and TEVA. Pedro Carreiro Martins has received research grants from AstraZeneca and honorarium as speaker/consultant from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Sanofi. Cláudia Chaves Loureiro has received honorarium as speaker/consultant from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Sanofi and TEVA. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Introduction and objectives: Severe asthma management during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a challenge and will continue to be, at least in the next few months, as herd immunity is still a mirage. A lot has to be learned about how COVID-19 affects underlying diseases, and severe asthma is no exception. Methods: Narrative review of papers available until February 2021 in PubMed and Google Scholar, relating severe asthma and COVID-19. Four main research topics were reviewed: SARS-CoV-2 infection: immunology and respiratory pathology; interrelationship of severe asthma endotypes and COVID-19 disease mechanisms; severe asthma epidemiology and COVID-19; and biologics for severe asthma in the context of COVID-19. Results: COVID-19 disease mechanisms start with upper respiratory cell infection, and afterwards several immunological facets are activated, contributing to disease severity, namely cell-mediated immunity and antibody production. Although infrequent in the COVID-19 course some patients develop a cytokine storm that causes organ damage and may lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome or multiorgan failure. Regarding severe asthma endotypes, type2-high might have a protective role both in infection risk and disease course. There is conflicting data regarding the epidemiological relationship between COVID-19 among severe asthma patients, with some studies reporting increased risk of infection and disease course, whereas others the other way round. Biologics for severe asthma do not seem to increase the risk of infection and severe COVID-19, although further evidence is needed. Conclusions: Globally, in the era of COVID-19, major respiratory societies recommend continuing the biologic treatment, preferably in a self-home administration program.publishersversionpublishe

As propostas de Le Corbusier para o Rio de Janeiro e a sua influência na arquitectura modernista no Brasil

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Arquitectura, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa, 2016Exame público realizado em 30 de Março de 2017Le Corbusier aproveita a participação num ciclo de conferências pela América do Sul sobre urbanismo e arquitectura, para conhecer os vários países por onde foi passando, em especial o Brasil e a cidade do Rio de Janeiro, com a qual facilmente criou uma grande intimidade e admiração tanto com as pessoas como com as características do lugar que o fizeram pensar e desenhar propostas capazes de resolver os problemas urbanisticos e aproveitar para iniciar uma nova fase na investigação da arquitectura e urbanismo, através de gestos de traço plástico, absorvente e de conceitos arrojados numa maior aproximação ao lugar, deixando uma grande influência sobre os jovens arquitectos brasileiros

Engaging Isatins in Multicomponent Reactions (MCRs) – Easy Access to Structural Diversity

Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) are a valuable tool in diversity-oriented synthesis. Its application to privileged structures is gaining relevance in the fields of organic and medicinal chemistry. Isatin, due to its unique reactivity, can undergo different MCRs, affording multiple interesting scaffolds, namely oxindole-derivatives (including spirooxindoles, bis-oxindoles and 3,3-disubstituted oxindoles) and even, under certain conditions, ring-opening reactions occur that leads to other heterocyclic compounds. Over the past few years, new methodologies have been described for the application of this important and easily available starting material in MCRs. In this review, we explore these novelties, displaying them according to the structure of the final products obtained