Neosporose bovina: estudo de fatores de risco em 60 propriedades leiteiras no estado do Rio Grande do Sul e levantamento de causas de aborto bovino com ênfase em Neospora caninum

O estudo resultou em dois artigos principais relacionados à neosporose bovina e um relato de casos de aborto micótico em bovinos. O primeiro artigo trata de fatores de risco associados à infecção por Neospora caninum em propriedades leiteiras no estado do Rio Grande do sul e o segundo refere-se a um levantamento de causas de aborto bovino com ênfase em neosporose. Um estudo transversal foi realizado para verificar a associação entre fatores de risco e soroprevalência de N. caninum em 60 propriedades leiteiras escolhidas aleatoreamente em duas regiões distintas (Ibirubá e Pelotas/São Lourenço do Sul). Um questionário relativo à transmissão de N. caninum foi aplicado nas propriedades. Coletou-se sangue de 40% dos animais de cada propriedade para realização do teste de imunofluorescência indireta (IFI). A associação entre os fatores de risco e soroprevalência foi analisada através da estimação da equação generalizada com função logística multivariada. Amostras de sangue foram coletadas de 1549/3872 animais. A soroprevalência geral encontrada nos animais foi de 17,8% (276/1549), sendo que 93,3% (56/60) dos rebanhos apresentavam pelo menos um animal soropositivo. Foram encontradas quatro variáveis associadas significativamente com a soroprevalência de N. caninum: número de cães (P=0,02; OR 1,17), área em hectares ((P=0.01; OR 0,90), alimentação de bezerros com “pool”de colostro (P=0,003; OR 2,07) e região (P=0,03; OR 0,65). No segundo artigo, 161 fetos bovinos abortados foram analisados em 1,5 anos. A causa de aborto foi identificada em 51,5% dos casos. Infecção por N. caninum foi observada em 23% dos fetos. Aborto bacteriano foi diagnosticado em 17,4% dos casos (28/161), seguido por infecção micótica (3,1%) e viral (3,1%). Casos de aborto causado por Aspergillus sp. em bovinos foram descritos em detalhe no terceiro artigo, onde cinco de 147 (3,4%) dos fetos analisados apresentavam lesões macroscópicas e/ou histológicas caracterizadas basicamente por placentite ou hepatite necrozante e pneumonia supurativa

Tourism development in Alentejo : the case of an integrated resort project

Tourism is one of the most important sectors in the World. According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) it accounts for 9% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), generates 1 in 11 jobs, and represents 6% of total world exports. The same organization noted a record 1.087 million international tourists in 2013 and predicts that in 2030 this figure will reach 1.8 billion. For Portugal specifically, is one of the most important economic activities developed in the country. The main objective of this dissertation, written in the form of a case study, is to study an Integrated Resort project for a property (Alcube) in the Alentejo region by analyzing the purposed features for the Resort, the target market, the marketing and financial aspects of the project, and also what are the specific issues that should be considered when developing a project of this nature. With the present dissertation we strive to address the question of what are the possible alternative tourism projects that can be developed in the property. Firstly, we present a literature review that provides an overview of tourism, its main trends, sustainable tourism development, alternative forms of tourism, integrated resorts and residential tourism, and general tourism behavior and motivation of tourists. We then analyze the aspects of the Integrated Resort project and suggest two alternative tourism developments. Lastly, we briefly present possible competitors to take into account. We conclude with some final remarks and limitations of the study; we also suggest some future research topics.O turismo é um dos sectores mais importantes do Mundo. De acordo com a Organização Mundial do Turismo (UNWTO) é responsável por 9% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) global, gera 1 em cada 11 empregos, e representa 6% do total de exportações mundiais. A mesma organização registou um recorde de 1.087 milhões de turistas internacionais em 2013 e prevê que se atinja a marca de 1,8 biliões em 2013. Em Portugal, é uma das mais importantes atividades económicas desenvolvidas no país. O objetivo principal desta dissertação, escrita em forma de caso estudo, é estudar um projeto de um Resort Integrado numa herdade (Alcube) na região do Alentejo, através da análise das características propostas para o Resort, do mercado alvo, das questões financeiras e de marketing, e também das questões a ter em conta quando se desenvolve um projeto desta natureza. Com esta dissertação tentamos responder à questão de quais são os possíveis projetos alternativos de turismo que podem ser desenvolvidos na herdade. Primeiramente, vamos apresentar uma revisão de literatura onde iremos explorar o turismo, as principais tendências, o desenvolvimento sustentável do turismo, formas alternativas de turismo, resorts integrados e turismo residencial, e o comportamento e as motivações dos turistas. Seguidamente, analisámos os diversos aspetos do projeto do Resort Integrado e sugerimos duas possíveis alternativas. Por fim, apresentámos sucintamente alguns concorrentes a considerar. Concluímos com alguns comentários finais e as limitações do estudo; apresentamos ainda sugestões para pesquisas futuras

Priorities for Brazilian cooperation in the South Atlantic

This study aimed at making a critical assessment of the actions of Brazil facing the challenges for the maintenance of the ZPCAS. Research focused on the investigation of documents that dealt with the purposes of this regional integration, as speeches of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the minutes of the inisterialMeetings of ZPCAS, the National Defense Strategy and the news on the subject. It came to the conclusion that military and technical cooperation and investment policies are inseparable elements for the consolidation of Brazil as a regional leader

Modeling a complex production line using virtual cells

This chapter presents modeling and simulation of a complex multistage multiproduct production line with four closed loop networks configuration, which also act as a virtual cell. This allows for a greater understanding of the functions within the production line through the simplification of the production flow with the addition of buffers between the cells. Virtual cells are crucial in this instance due to the dynamic configuration, which could help production system designers in optimizing the complex configuration of production

Speaker change detection using BIC: a comparison on two datasets

Abstract — This paper addresses the problem of unsupervised speaker change detection. We assume that there is no prior knowledge on the number of speakers or their identities. Two methods are tested. The first method uses the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), investigates the AudioSpectrumCentroid and AudioWaveformEnvelope features, and implements a dynamic thresholding followed by a fusion scheme. The second method is a real-time one that uses a metric-based approach employing line spectral pairs (LSP) and the BIC criterion to validate a potential change point. The experiments are carried out on two different datasets. The first set was created by concatenating speakers from the TIMIT database and is referred to as the TIMIT data set. The second set was created by using recordings from the MPEG-7 test set CD1 and broadcast news and is referred to as the INESC dataset. I

Bounding the degree of solutions to Pfaff equations

We study hypersurfaces of complex projective manifolds which are invariant by a foliation, or more generally which are solutions to a Pfaff equation. We bound their degree using classical results on logarithmic forms

Analysis of complex survival data: a tutorial using the Shiny MSM.app application

The development of applications for obtaining interpretable results in a simple and summarized manner in multi-state models is a research field with great potential, namely in terms of using open source tools that can be easily implemented in biomedical applications. In this tutorial, we introduce MSM.app, an interactive web application using the Shiny package for the R language. In the following sections, we present the main functionalities of the MSM.app and an explanation of the outputs obtained for better understanding, independent of the statistical knowledge of users.This research was financed within the research grants PTDC/MAT-STA/28248/2017 and PD/BD/142887/2018

Methods for checking the Markov condition in multi-state survival data

The inference in multi-state models is traditionally performed under a Markov assumption that claims that past and future of the process are independent given the present state. This assumption has an important role in the estimation of the transition probabilities. When the multi-state model is Markovian, the Aalen-Johansen estimator gives consistent estimators of the transition probabilities but this is no longer the case when the process is non-Markovian. Usually, this assumption is checked including covariates depending on the history. Since the landmark methods of the transition probabilities are free of the Markov assumption, they can also be used to introduce such tests by measuring their discrepancy to Markovian estimators. In this paper, we introduce tests for the Markov assumption and compare them with the usual approach based on the analysis of covariates depending on history through simulations. The methods are also compared with more recent and competitive approaches. Three real data examples are included for illustration of the proposed methods.This research was financed by Portuguese Funds through FCT - “Fundação para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia”, within the research grants PTDC/MAT-STA/28248/2017 and PD/BD/142887/2018