SkILL - a Stochastic Inductive Logic Learner

Probabilistic Inductive Logic Programming (PILP) is a rel- atively unexplored area of Statistical Relational Learning which extends classic Inductive Logic Programming (ILP). This work introduces SkILL, a Stochastic Inductive Logic Learner, which takes probabilistic annotated data and produces First Order Logic theories. Data in several domains such as medicine and bioinformatics have an inherent degree of uncer- tainty, that can be used to produce models closer to reality. SkILL can not only use this type of probabilistic data to extract non-trivial knowl- edge from databases, but it also addresses efficiency issues by introducing a novel, efficient and effective search strategy to guide the search in PILP environments. The capabilities of SkILL are demonstrated in three dif- ferent datasets: (i) a synthetic toy example used to validate the system, (ii) a probabilistic adaptation of a well-known biological metabolism ap- plication, and (iii) a real world medical dataset in the breast cancer domain. Results show that SkILL can perform as well as a deterministic ILP learner, while also being able to incorporate probabilistic knowledge that would otherwise not be considered

The impact of Covid on consumer behaviour: The product category of sauces

This research explores the impact of Covid on consumer buying behaviour, specifically in the sauces category. This study was done in collaboration with the Marketing Futurecast Lab project which provided the means for data collection to support this research. The study followed a qualitative methodology, based on the ethnographic method; and was conducted based on two methodologies: In Situ, holding dinners at chosen families homes and Shadowing, observing the buying behaviour of an individual. We concluded that although the pandemic, in general terms, have caused changes in the consumption and purchasing habits of families, when we analyse the category of ketchup and mayonnaise products specifically, no such impact was observed. In fact, we could see only slight changes in quantities purchased, mainly ketchup, which consumers assume they will keep after the pandemic. But no variation could be considered significant. However, given the qualitative nature of the research, the study allowed us to identify some suggestions from the point of view of the management and communication of this category, specifically in relation to decision-making agents, type of demand and impact of sales promotions

As exigências do trabalho e o burnout nos controladores de tráfego aéreo : o papel mediador do conflito trabalho-família

Tese de mestrado, Psicologia (Secção de Psicologia dos Recursos Humanos, do Trabalho e das Organizações), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2017A presente investigação tem a finalidade de analisar o papel mediador do conflito trabalho-família (CTF) na relação entre as exigências do trabalho e o burnout (exaustão e cinismo), nos controladores de tráfego aéreo (CTA). A recolha de dados foi feita na NAV Portugal, com a participação de CTAs com a licença activa (N = 131). Os resultados do estudo confirmam a relação significativa e positiva entre as exigências e a dimensão exaustão, não se verificando o mesmo com a dimensão cinismo. Adicionalmente, suportam a mediação significativa do CTF na relação supracitada. A investigação apresenta implicações práticas importantes para o contexto específico dos CTAs, nomeadamente na temática do equilíbrio entre os domínios profissional e familiar.The following study has the main aim to analyze the mediator role of work-to-family conflict (WFC) in the relationship between job demands and burnout (exhaustion and cynicism), among air traffic controllers (ATC). The data was collected at NAV Portugal, with the participation of ATCs that have an active permit (N = 131). The study results confirm the significant and positive relationship between job demands and the exhaustion dimension of burnout, although the same was not verified with the cynicism dimension. Farther, the results support the significant mediation of WFC in the relationship described before. The investigation presents important practical implications for the specific context of ATC

Influenza virus type/subtype and different infection profiles by age group during 2017/2018 season

DDI-INSA em colaboração com a Rede Portuguesa de Laboratórios para o Diagnóstico da GripeBackground: Influenza has a major impact in hospitalization during each influenza season. We analysed the influenza type/subtype distribution by age group and medical care wards (ambulatory, hospital, intensive care unit). Material and Methods: During 2017/2018 season, 14 hospitals from Portugal mainland and Atlantic Island (Azores and Madeira) reported to the National Influenza Centre 13747 cases of respiratory infection, all tested for influenza type and/or subtype. Epidemiological data: age, sample collection, hospital dwelling service and patient outcome were reported. Results: From the 13747 reported cases, 3717(27%) were influenza positive of which 2033 (55%) were influenza B, 722 (19%) A unsubtyped, 505 (14%) AH3, 442 (12%) AH1pdm09 and 15(0,1%) mixed infections. Influenza A was detected in 71% (204/208) of toddlers(<5 years) although in the remaining age groups influenza B was detected in more than 50% of the confirmed flu cases. Influenza B was the predominant virus in hospitalized and ICU influenza cases between 5-14 years (69% and 75%, respectively) and played a major role in elderly (65+ years) hospitalized and ICU cases(57% and 67%, respectively). AH1pdm09 virus was detected in 30% of the influenza confirmed ICU patients, 2.1 times more than in hospitalized cases in other wards and 3.3 times more than influenza AH1pdm09 cases in ambulatory care. Influenza mixed infection were detected sporadically,mainly in hospitalized and ICU patients. From 2080 known outcomes, 40(1.9%) patients deceased, influenza was confirmed in 11(28%) of these cases. Conclusions: Cocirculation of different influenza virus type/subtype may indicate different infection profiles by age groups and should guide influenza preventive/treatment measures.N/

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Hybrid MapReduce Model for Prolog

Abstract-Interest in the MapReduce programming model has been rekindled by Google in the past 10 years; its popularity is mostly due to the convenient abstraction for parallelization details this framework provides. State-of-the-art systems such as Google&apos;s, Hadoop or SAGA often provide added features like a distributed file system, fault tolerance mechanisms, data redundancy and portability to the basic MapReduce framework. However, these features pose an additional overhead in terms of system performance. In this work, we present a MapReduce design for Prolog which can potentially take advantage of hybrid parallel environments; this combination allies the easy declarative syntax of logic programming with its suitability to represent and handle multi-relational data due to its first order logic basis. MapReduce for Prolog addresses efficiency issues by performing load balancing on data with different granularity and allowing for parallelization in shared memory, as well as across machines. In an era where multicore processors have become common, taking advantage of a cluster&apos;s full capabilities requires the hybrid use of parallelism

Improving Candidate Quality of Probabilistic Logic Models

Many real-world phenomena exhibit both relational structure and uncertainty. Probabilistic Inductive Logic Programming (PILP) uses Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) extended with probabilistic facts to produce meaningful and interpretable models for real-world phenomena. This merge between First Order Logic (FOL) theories and uncertainty makes PILP a very adequate tool for knowledge representation and extraction. However, this flexibility is coupled with a problem (inherited from ILP) of exponential search space growth and so, often, only a subset of all possible models is explored due to limited resources. Furthermore, the probabilistic evaluation of FOL theories, coming from the underlying probabilistic logic language and its solver, is also computationally demanding. This work introduces a prediction-based pruning strategy, which can reduce the search space based on the probabilistic evaluation of models, and a safe pruning criterion, which guarantees that the optimal model is not pruned away, as well as two alternative more aggressive criteria that do not provide this guarantee. Experiments performed using three benchmarks from different areas show that prediction pruning is effective in (i) maintaining predictive accuracy for all criteria and experimental settings; (ii) reducing the execution time when using some of the more aggressive criteria, compared to using no pruning; and (iii) selecting better candidate models in limited resource settings, also when compared to using no pruning.status: accepte

Root Resorption in Orthodontics - Genetic Susceptibility?

OBJECTIVES: External root resorption (ERR) is a condition that can be observed in association with orthodontic treatment. The etiology of root resorption is complex, related with several factors. Some inflammatory mediators, controlled by specific genes, have been associated with bone resorption and in the recruitment of osteoclasts during orthodontic movement (Lee et al., 2007; Abass et al., 2008; Bastos et al., 2009). Particularly the association between polymorphisms in the IL-1B gene and ERR during orthodontic treatment has been referenced in literature. The present paper as the principal objective to present a case of an orthodontic patient, Caucasian, gender male, 15 years old, with positive family history of generalized ERR associated to orthodontic treatment (one sister), and there was therefore need to clarify the role of genetic susceptibility in its pathogenesis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It was performed a literature review on PUBMED with the key words dental orthodontics resorption genetics, 12 articles were obtained and were included 8 of these. There were also associated with the theme 7 more articles, from the list of related articles. The search was limited to the last 10 years and the English, French and Spanish. RESULTS: As there was positive family history of the ERR was decided to perform a genetic test for determination of single polymorphisms for IL1B gene (TGP, CGC Clinical Genetics Center, Portugal), which revealed the presence of an allele of the IL1B gene - positive result for ERR. The absence of external etiological factors associated with orthodontic treatment was suggestive of possible individual genetic susceptibility. CONCLUSIONS: The identification of individuals with increased susceptibility to ERR should be considered during the orthodontic treatment plan, to allow adjustments necessary in terms of magnitude of the force to be applied, both in terms of duration of treatment