Geovisual analytics for spatial decision support: Setting the research agenda

This article summarizes the results of the workshop on Visualization, Analytics & Spatial Decision Support, which took place at the GIScience conference in September 2006. The discussions at the workshop and analysis of the state of the art have revealed a need in concerted cross‐disciplinary efforts to achieve substantial progress in supporting space‐related decision making. The size and complexity of real‐life problems together with their ill‐defined nature call for a true synergy between the power of computational techniques and the human capabilities to analyze, envision, reason, and deliberate. Existing methods and tools are yet far from enabling this synergy. Appropriate methods can only appear as a result of a focused research based on the achievements in the fields of geovisualization and information visualization, human‐computer interaction, geographic information science, operations research, data mining and machine learning, decision science, cognitive science, and other disciplines. The name ‘Geovisual Analytics for Spatial Decision Support’ suggested for this new research direction emphasizes the importance of visualization and interactive visual interfaces and the link with the emerging research discipline of Visual Analytics. This article, as well as the whole special issue, is meant to attract the attention of scientists with relevant expertise and interests to the major challenges requiring multidisciplinary efforts and to promote the establishment of a dedicated research community where an appropriate range of competences is combined with an appropriate breadth of thinking

ANTI AGING CLOVE ESSENTIAL OIL MICROPARTICLES

Radicais livres são capazes de aumentar o fenômeno natural de dano à pele, estresse oxidativo e peroxidação de ácidos graxos da bicamada lipídica. Para impedir este processo, a pele possui o seu próprio mecanismo de defesa. No entanto esta habilidade de proteção natural diminui com o avanço da idade. As propriedades antioxidantes do óleo essencial de cravo-da-índia (Caryophyllus aromaticus Teysm) encapsulado em micropartículas de alginato de sódio foram utilizadas no desenvolvimento de formulações   dermatológicas para cuidados com a pele

The Epidemiology and Clinical Spectrum of Melioidosis: 540 Cases from the 20 Year Darwin Prospective Study

Melioidosis is an occupationally and recreationally acquired infection important in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Recently cases have been reported from more diverse locations globally. The responsible bacterium, Burkholderia pseudomallei, is considered a potential biothreat agent. Risk factors predisposing to melioidosis are well recognised, most notably diabetes. The Darwin prospective melioidosis study has identified 540 cases of melioidosis over 20 years and analysis of the epidemiology and clinical findings provides important new insights into this disease. Risk factors identified in addition to diabetes, hazardous alcohol use and chronic renal disease include chronic lung disease, malignancies, rheumatic heart disease, cardiac failure and age ≥50 years. Half of patients presented with pneumonia and septic shock was common (21%). The decrease in mortality from 30% in the first 5 years of the study to 9% in the last five years is attributed to earlier diagnosis and improvements in intensive care management. Of the 77 fatal cases (14%), all had known risk factors for melioidosis. This supports the most important conclusion of the study, which is that melioidosis is very unlikely to kill a healthy person, provided the infection is diagnosed early and resources are available to provide appropriate antibiotics and critical care where required

Interactive Assistance for Tour Planning

Abstract. It is often difficult for individual tourists to make a sightseeing tour plan because they do not have prior knowledge about the destination. Although several systems have been developed for assisting the user’s tour planning, these systems lack interactivity, while demanding a lot of data input from the user. In this paper, we introduce a new computer-aided tour planning system, called CT-Planner, which realizes collaborative tour planning. The system provides several tour plans with different characters and asks the user to give feedback. The feedback is utilized by the system for inferring the user’s preferences and then revising the tour plans. This cycle is repeated until the user is satisfied with the final plan. Thanks to this cycle the user does not have to register his profiles in advance. In addition, the system allows the user to specify his special requests, which leads to a more satisfying experience of computer-aided tour planning

Observation of the Decay Λ0b→Λ+cτ−¯ν

The first observation of the semileptonic b-baryon decay Λb0→Λc+τ-ν¯τ, with a significance of 6.1σ, is reported using a data sample corresponding to 3 fb-1 of integrated luminosity, collected by the LHCb experiment at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV at the LHC. The τ- lepton is reconstructed in the hadronic decay to three charged pions. The ratio K=B(Λb0→Λc+τ-ν¯τ)/B(Λb0→Λc+π-π+π-) is measured to be 2.46±0.27±0.40, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The branching fraction B(Λb0→Λc+τ-ν¯τ)=(1.50±0.16±0.25±0.23)% is obtained, where the third uncertainty is from the external branching fraction of the normalization channel Λb0→Λc+π-π+π-. The ratio of semileptonic branching fractions R(Λc+)B(Λb0→Λc+τ-ν¯τ)/B(Λb0→Λc+μ-ν¯μ) is derived to be 0.242±0.026±0.040±0.059, where the external branching fraction uncertainty from the channel Λb0→Λc+μ-ν¯μ contributes to the last term. This result is in agreement with the standard model prediction