The role of the electric vehicle in smart homes: Assessment and future perspectives

The wide spreading of electric mobility is imposing the application of new technologies of hardware and software for supporting new operation paradigms, not only in the perspective of improving smart grids, but also each time more in the perspective of boosting the preponderance of smart homes. Concretely, nowadays it is clear that the emergent technologies for smart homes, targeting power quality and a more efficient power management, are also altering the conventional electrical power grids toward smart grids. In this panorama, by relating the strategic pillars of electric mobility and smart homes, this paper has as main objective the characterization of the role of the electric vehicle (EV) in smart homes, presenting a broad assessment based on the state of the art, as well as creating a link with upcoming advanced operations. From the smart home point of view, since it should be equipped to deal with the requirements of the EV, the assessment of both on-board and off-board EV battery charging systems are considered along the paper. Furthermore, the presence of technologies such as energy storage systems, renewable energy sources and dc electrical appliances in smart homes towards sustainability is also reflected in this paper, but framed from the point of view of an off-board EV battery charging system, since it is more convenient for enabling the interface of these mentioned technologies. Looking the paper as a whole, a relevant contribution is the discussion of future operations for the EV in smart homes, also envisioning the opportunity for ac, dc, or hybrid power grids. Illustrative and strategic results are shown, covering all these features with specific details, not only based on numerical simulations, but also based on experimental results, which were obtained with a proof-of-concept laboratory prototype.FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia(DAIPESEV PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017

Vehicle-to-anything: a power transfer perspective for vehicle electrification

The concept of vehicle-to-anything (V2X) is mainly focused on the bidirectional communication between any technology of vehicle and any external system that can contribute for its operation. However, prospecting the vehicle electrification, this concept can also be associated with the power transfer between an electric vehicle (EV) and any external system, where bidirectional communication is absolutely fundamental. Within the power transfer, the possibility of exchanging active power between an EV and the power grid is considered as a promising operation mode, especially considering the possibility of selling demand response services for the electrical power grid. Contemplating the vehicle electrification context, in addition to the latent possibility of interaction between EVs and the power grid for active power exchange, other possibilities of interaction can also be considered, providing advantageous services for the power grid. Thus, this article approaches the V2X concept for off-board systems in the power transfer perspective for vehicle electrification, aggregating new contributions related with the interaction between an EV and any external electrical system (operating as source or load), and both from on-grid or off-grid point of view. Contributions are meticulously presented, recognizing their advantages and disadvantages in a real-scenario of operation. A comparison in terms of cost of implementation and in terms of efficiency is presented considering the various solutions of the vehicle electrification in a smart grid perspective.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019. This work is financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation ‐ COMPETE 2020 Programme, and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT‐Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within project SAICTPAC/0004/2015‐ POCI‐01‐0145‐FEDER‐016434. Mr. Tiago Sousa is supported by the doctoral scholarship SFRH/BD/134353/2017 granted by the Portuguese FCT agency. This work is part of the FCT project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030283

SPELLing out energy leaks: Aiding developers locate energy inefficient code

Although hardware is generally seen as the main culprit for a computer's energy usage, software too has a tremendous impact on the energy spent. Unfortunately, there is still not enough support for software developers so they can make their code more energy-aware.This paper proposes a technique to detect energy inefficient fragments in the source code of a software system. Test cases are executed to obtain energy consumption measurements, and a statistical method, based on spectrum-based fault localization, is introduced to relate energy consumption to the source code. The result of our technique is an energy ranking of source code fragments pointing developers to possible energy leaks in their code. This technique was implemented in the SPELL toolkit.Finally, in order to evaluate our technique, we conducted an empirical study where we asked participants to optimize the energy efficiency of a software system using our tool, while also having two other groups using no tool assistance and a profiler, respectively. We showed statistical evidence that developers using our technique were able to improve the energy efficiency by 43% on average, and even out performing a profiler for energy optimization. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.This work is funded by the ERDF -European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization -COMPETE 2020 Programme within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006961, and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia within project POCI010145FEDER016718, UID/EEA/50014/2013, and by FCT grant SFRH/BD/132485/2017. This work is also supported by operation Centro010145FEDER000019 -C4 -Centro de Competencias em Cloud Computing, cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Programa Operacional Regional do Centro (Centro 2020), in the scope of the Sistema de Apoio a Investigacao Cientifica e Tecnologica -Programas Integrados de IC&DT, and the first author was financed by post-doc grant referencia C4_SMDS_L1-1_D

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

A review of neuro-ophthalmological manifestations of human coronavirus infection

Introduction: Human coronavirus (HCoVs) are a group of viruses with recognized neurotropic and neuroinvasive capabilities. The reports on the neurological and ocular findings are increasing day after day and several central and peripheral neurological manifestations are already described. However, none specifically describes the neuro-ophthalmological manifestation of HCoVs. This is the first article specifically reviewing neuro-ophthalmological manifestations of HCoVs infection. Methods: PubMed and Google Scholar databases were searched using the keywords: coronaviridae, coronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, MERS, ocular, ophthalmology, ophthalmological, neuro-ophthalmology, neurological, manifestations. A manual search through the reference lists of relevant articles was also performed. There were no restrictions concerning language or study type and publications not yet printed but available online were considered. Results: Coronavirus eye involvement is not frequent and includes mostly a typical viral follicular conjunctivitis. Recently, retinal anatomical alterations were described using optic coherence tomography. Neuro-ophthalmological symptoms and signs can appear isolated or associated with neurological syndromes. The manifestations include headache, ocular pain, visual impairment, diplopia, and cranial nerve palsies secondary to Miller Fisher syndrome, Guillain-Barré syndrome, or encephalitis, and nystagmus. Conclusion: Neurological and neuro-ophthalmological syndromes, symptoms, and signs should not be neglected and a complete ophthalmological examination of these patients should be performed to fully describe ocular manifestations related to HCoVs. We believe that major ocular and neuro-ophthalmological manifestations reports lack due to safety issues concerning detailed ophthalmological examination; on the other hand, in a large number of cases, the presence of life-threatening coronavirus disease hinders ocular examination and ophthalmologist's visit to the intensive care unit.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Carcinoma de células escamosas na base do chifre com metástase pulmonar em um bovino – Relato de caso

Descreve-se um caso de carcinoma de células escamosas na base do chifre com metástase pulmonar em um bovino prenhe. Em novembro de 2015, uma vaca Gir com nove anos de idade foi atendida no Centro de Desenvolvimento da Pecuária (CDP) da UFBA. Segundo o proprietário, o animal apresentou lesão traumática na base do chifre esquerdo devido ao uso de corda, a qual não respondeu ao tratamento e resultou em rotação do chifre. Ao exame físico observaram-se grande massa tumoral (16x17x8cm), irregular, fétida, de consistência esponjosa e aspecto de couve-flor, pruriginosa e de fácil sangramento, localizada na pele crânioventral à base do chifre e orelha esquerda que se infiltrava profundamente para o interior do chifre esquerdo. Foram realizados exames complementares: hemograma, exame radiográfico e a biopsia da massa tumoral. O hemograma revelou anemia severa, hipoproteinemia e leucocitose.  A radiografia evidenciou invasão dos terços proximal e médio do chifre esquerdo pela massa tumoral e proeminências que circundavam os ossos da cabeça. A avaliação histopatológica evidenciou que a massa era constituída por proliferação de células epiteliais neoplásicas, moderadamente diferenciadas com núcleos arredondados a ovoides, arranjados em cordões irregulares e ninhos sólidos entremeados por escasso estroma fibroso; notou-se caráter infiltrativo manifesto. O diagnóstico carcinoma de células escamosas (CCE) da base do chifre foi estabelecido com base no histórico, sinais clínicos, epidemiologia e exame histopatológico. Devido à gestação avançada e condição clínica precária, o tratamento de suporte foi indicado para estabilização do paciente até o parto, para somente então ser realizado o tratamento cirúrgico com ressecção da massa tumoral associado a descorna. Contudo, após o parto, a vaca apresentou piora significativa do quadro clínico, com decúbito persistente, inapetência, anemia severa, fraqueza generalizada, sem resposta aos tratamentos realizados. Devido ao prognóstico desfavorável o proprietário optou pela eutanásia. Após a morte o animal foi necropsiado. Durante a necropsia verificou-se que a massa tumoral infiltrava as porções proximal e média internas do corno esquerdo, bem como todo o seio frontal esquerdo associada a intenso exsudato purulento e detritos celulares. Adicionalmente observaram-se nos lobos caudais dos pulmões múltiplos nódulos esbranquiçados com até 3,0cm de diâmetro com características macroscópicas semelhantes ao tumor da base de chifre. A avaliação microscópica revelou tratar-se de metástase do CCE da base do chifre

Diagnóstico por tomografia computadorizada da extrusão de disco intervertebral em paciente geriatra: Relato de Caso

A doença do disco intervertebral (DDIV) é a causa mais comum de compressão medular em cães, resultando em problemas neurológicos, podendo ser classificada em dois tipos, Hansen tipo I (extrusão de disco) e Hansen tipo II (protrusão de disco), que pressionam os nervos da medula ocasionando quadro de dor, ataxia, paralisia e paraplegia. O tratamento à se indicar deve ser baseado no grau da lesão, podendo ser o tratamento clínico associado à fisioterapia, para casos menos graves, visto que é relatado sucessos na recuperação do quadro, na literatura. O objetivo desse trabalho foi relatar a eficiência da tomografia computadorizada como ferramenta complementar para diagnostico conclusivo da DDIV e o sucesso do tratamento clínico e fisioterápico para esta doença. O animal em questão era um poodle com 11 anos de idade que apresentava quadro de ataxia e incoordenação motora e que foi diagnosticado com uma extrusão de disco intervertebral entre as vertebras T12 e T13 através de tomografia computadorizada. O tratamento eleito foi à base de antiinflamatórios e fisioterapia com enfoque o fortalecimento da musculatura epaxial e hipaxial. Transcorrido 45 dias do início do tratamento, foi observado uma melhora significativa do animal, entretanto, uma futura intervenção cirúrgica não foi descartada