Haves and have nots must find a better way: the case for open scientific hardware

Many efforts are making science more open and accessible; they are mostly concentrated on issues that appear before and after experiments are performed: open access journals, open databases, and many other tools to increase reproducibility of science and access to information. However, these initiatives do not promote access to scientific equipment necessary for experiments. Mostly due to monetary constraints, equipment availability has always been uneven around the globe, affecting predominantly low-income countries and institutions. Here, a case is made for the use of free open source hardware in research and education, including countries and institutions where funds were never the biggest problem

Modelagem 3D de edifícios históricos: a influência do nível de detalhe (LOD) no processo de reconstrução virtual e interpretação da Villa Ferreira Lage, Juiz de Fora – MG

The present work investigates how different LOD (Level of Detail) configurations influence the construction and interpretation of three-dimensional (3D) models of historic buildings, here understood as virtual heritage. Despite offering new possibilities for the preservation, education, interpretation, and management of cultural assets, virtual heritage still demands more consistent theoretical-practical debates. In turn, 3D modeling, an important step in constructing 3D models, requires time, investments, and specialized professionals, while LOD, highlighted here as a parameter of 3D modeling, acts directly on the representation of models and, above all, on workflows. The object of study is Villa Ferreira Lage, a historic building located in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and the methodology addressed has an exploratory, experimental and qualitative approach. Under the scope of interpretation of virtual heritage, this work focused on two main points: (i) to respond to the gaps found in the literature and (ii) to propose an exploratory study that relates Villa Ferreira Lage's 3D models with different LOD's to the perception of users when experimenting with them under a phenomenological approach. Thus, it was possible to identify which elements and configurations of the 3D models were predominant. The adopted procedures were based on mapping Villa Ferreira Lage's 3D modeling process and applying a phenomenological method to the experiment. The activity was conducted through an online workshop, where 11 students entering the FAU-UFJF Architecture and Urbanism program could virtually experience the 3D models created, comparing them to the physical building. Animations of 3D models and a film outside the Villa were used, and the participants were divided into five groups, one for each explored LOD. When watching the videos, they described their experiences through reports that were analyzed listing the emerging themes from the speeches. Finally, the findings underwent a statistical analysis in IRAMUTEQ software to understand how each theme was linked to the others and the videos. The experiment showed that 3D models with higher LOD's led to greater comments about Villa Ferreira Lage's architecture and elements such as the building's surroundings, the humanization of the scenery, and the temporal depth of the 3D models must be considered in the virtual reconstruction process.O presente trabalho investiga como diferentes configurações de LOD (Level of Detail) influenciam na construção e interpretação de modelos tridimensionais (3D) de edifícios históricos. Apesar de oferecer novas possibilidades às ações de preservação, educação, interpretação e gestão de bens culturais, o patrimônio virtual ainda demanda debates teóricopráticos mais consistentes. A modelagem 3D, por sua vez, uma importante etapa na construção dos modelos 3D, requer tempo, investimentos e profissionais especializados enquanto o LOD, destacado aqui como um parâmetro da modelagem 3D, atua diretamente na representação dos modelos e sobretudo, nos fluxos de trabalho. A metodologia traçada tem caráter exploratório, experimental e abordagem qualitativa. Sob o âmbito da interpretação do patrimônio virtual, o trabalho focou em dois pontos principais: (i) responder às lacunas encontradas na literatura e ainda; (ii) propor um estudo exploratório que relacione o LOD de modelos 3D da Villa Ferreira Lage e a percepção dos usuários ao experimentá-los sob uma abordagem fenomenológica, para que, desta forma, fosse possível identificar quais elementos e configurações do modelo 3D foram preponderantes na sua experimentação. Os procedimentos adotados apoiam-se no mapeamento do processo de modelagem 3D da Villa Ferreira Lage e no método fenomenológico aplicado a um experimento que consistiu em uma oficina online, onde 11 alunos ingressantes do curso de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da FAU-UFJF puderam experimentar virtualmente os modelos 3D de diferentes LODs e compará-los a um vídeo do edifício físico. Os participantes foram divididos em cinco grupos, um para cada LOD proposto. Ao assistirem aos vídeos, eles descreveram a sua experiência por meio de relatos que foram analisados enumerando as temáticas emergentes dos discursos. Ao final, os achados passaram por uma análise estatística no software IRAMUTEQ, a fim de entender como diferentes temáticas estiveram atreladas entre si e aos vídeos. O experimento mostrou que os modelos 3D com maior LOD resultaram em comentários mais detalhados sobre a arquitetura da Villa Ferreira Lage e que elementos como o entorno do edifício, a humanização do cenário e a profundidade temporal dos modelos 3D devem ser considerados no processo de reconstrução virtual

Leveraging open hardware to alleviate the burden of COVID-19 on global health systems.

With the current rapid spread of COVID-19, global health systems are increasingly overburdened by the sheer number of people that need diagnosis, isolation and treatment. Shortcomings are evident across the board, from staffing, facilities for rapid and reliable testing to availability of hospital beds and key medical-grade equipment. The scale and breadth of the problem calls for an equally substantive response not only from frontline workers such as medical staff and scientists, but from skilled members of the public who have the time, facilities and knowledge to meaningfully contribute to a consolidated global response. Here, we summarise community-driven approaches based on Free and Open Source scientific and medical Hardware (FOSH) as well as personal protective equipment (PPE) currently being developed and deployed to support the global response for COVID-19 prevention, patient treatment and diagnostics

Cautious Adaptation of Defiant Components

Systems-of-systems are formed by the composition of independently created software components. These components are designed to satisfy their individual requirements, rather than the global requirements of the systems-of-systems. We refer to components that cannot be adapted to meet both individual and global requirements as defiant components. In this paper, we propose a cautious adaptation approach which supports changing the behaviour of such defiant components under exceptional conditions to satisfy global requirements, while continuing to guarantee the satisfaction of the components’ individual requirements. The approach represents both normal and exceptional conditions as scenarios; models the behaviour of exceptional conditions as wrappers implemented using an aspect-oriented technique; and deals with both single and multiple instances of defiant components with different precedence order at runtime. We evaluated an implementation of the approach using drones and boats for an organ delivery application conceived by our industrial partners, in which we assess how the proposed approach helps achieve the system-of-systems’ global requirements while accommodating increased complexity of hybrid aspects such as multiplicity, precedence ordering, openness, and heterogeneity

A “aristocracia do pé no chão” e o herói popular em Belém do Grão-Pará de Dalcídio Jurandir

Dalcídio Ramos Jurandir, one of the greatest modernist novelists in the Amazon, active militant of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and creator of the Far North Cycle, built a historical perspective on the city of Belém in the 1920s in his award-winning novel Belém do Grão-Pará. In his narrative about the city in its economic crisis after the rubber pageantry, Jurandir presents another possibility of history coming from the poor population from the countryside of the State, which, in rebelling against the neglect of public powers, takes up the tradition of the 19th century, fighting with weapons against those who exploited them. In this plot of neglect, oppression and resistance, a new sun appears in the city of Belém do Grão-Pará, from the "aristocracy of the foot on the ground", the "common people", from which Dalcídio Jurandir himself and his character Lício both descend - the latter being the hero of a universe in crisis, however engaged in the struggles of his time.Dalcídio Ramos Jurandir, um dos maiores romancistas do modernismo da Amazônia, militante atuante do Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) e idealizador do Ciclo do Extremo Norte, construiu uma perspectiva de História sobre a cidade de Belém nos anos de 1920 no seu romance premiado Belém do Grão-Pará. Na sua narrativa sobre a cidade em crise econômica após o fausto da borracha, Jurandir apresenta uma outra possibilidade de história a partir da população pobre do interior do Estado, que, ao se rebelar contra o descaso dos poderes públicos, retoma a tradição do movimento cabano do século XIX, lutando em armas contra os que a exploravam. Nessa trama de descaso, opressão e resistência, surge um novo sol na cidade de Belém do Grão-Pará, através da “aristocracia do pé no chão”, a “gente comum”, da qual descende o próprio Dalcídio Jurandir e a personagem seu Lício, o herói de um universo em crise, porém engajada nas lutas do seu tempo

A inserção de assistente social na Unidade de Acidente Vascular Cerebral em um hospital terciário do SUS

Esse trabalho foi desenvolvido a partir da formação em serviço realizada por assistente social residente, atuando em Unidade de Acidente Vascular Cerebral (U-AVC) de um hospital de alta complexidade do estado do Ceará. Teve por objetivo refletir sobre as contribuições do fazer profissional do assistente social enquanto membro de uma equipe multiprofissional, frente ao processo de saúde e doença vivenciado pelos pacientes acometidos por AVC e seus familiares. Foi pautado na concepção ampliada de saúde, no Projeto de Reforma Sanitária e no Projeto Ético Político do Serviço Social.  A experiência vivenciada, de novembro de 2016 a janeiro 2017, cumpre exigência curricular em Programa de Residência Multiprofissional em Saúde com ênfase em Neurologia e Neurocirurgia, promovida pela Escola de Saúde Pública do estado do Ceará, sendo esta a primeira turma a ter em sua composição profissionais do Serviço Social. Constitui-se de um relato de experiência que descreve a vivência do profissional de Serviço Social como membro de equipe multiprofissional, de forma a contribuir para sua área de atuação num campo especializado da saúde. A vivência neste âmbito de atuação coletiva produziu novos conhecimentos específicos da neurologia e do próprio fazer profissional do Serviço Social, proporcionando uma maior aproximação com demais categorias profissionais inseridas na unidade de AVC, promovendo reconhecimento quanto ao seu fazer profissional na medida que praticou e compartilhou saberes de ordem social e de direitos

Development and implementation of a significantly low-cost 3D bioprinter using recycled scrap material

The field of 3D bioengineering proposes to effectively contribute to the manufacture of artificial multicellular organ/tissues and the understanding of complex cellular mechanisms. In this regard, 3D cell cultures comprise a promising bioengineering possibility for the alternative treatment of organ function loss, potentially improving patient life expectancies. Patients with end-stage disease, for example, could benefit from treatment until organ transplantation or even undergo organ function restoration. Currently, 3D bioprinters can produce tissues such as trachea cartilage or artificial skin. Most low-cost 3D bioprinters are built from fused deposition modeling 3D printer frames modified for the deposition of biologically compatible material, ranging between $13.000,00 and$300.000,00. Furthermore, the cost of consumables should also be considered as they, can range from $3,85 and$100.000,00 per gram, making biomaterials expensive, hindering bioprinting access. In this context, our report describes the first prototype of a significantly low-cost 3D bioprinter built from recycled scrap metal and off-the-shelf electronics. We demonstrate the functionalized process and methodology proof of concept and aim to test it in different biological tissue scaffolds in the future, using affordable materials and open-source methodologies, thus democratizing the state of the art of this technology

Edge orientation signals in tactile afferents of macaques

The orientation of edges indented into the skin has been shown to be encoded in the responses of neurons in primary somatosensory cortex in a manner that draws remarkable analogies to their counterparts in primary visual cortex. According to the classical view, orientation tuning arises from the integration of untuned input from thalamic neurons with aligned but spatially displaced receptive fields (RFs). In a recent microneurography study with human subjects, the precise temporal structure of the responses of individual mechanoreceptive afferents to scanned edges was found to carry information about their orientation. This putative mechanism could in principle contribute to or complement the classical rate-based code for orientation. In the present study, we further examine orientation information carried by mechanoreceptive afferents of Rhesus monkeys. To this end, we record the activity evoked in cutaneous mechanoreceptive afferents when edges are indented into or scanned across the skin. First, we confirm that information about the edge orientation can be extracted from the temporal patterning in afferent responses of monkeys, as is the case in humans. Second, we find that while the coarse temporal profile of the response can be predicted linearly from the layout of the RF, the fine temporal profile cannot. Finally, we show that orientation signals in tactile afferents are often highly dependent on stimulus features other than orientation, which complicates putative decoding strategies. We discuss the challenges associated with establishing a neural code at the somatosensory periphery, where afferents are exquisitely sensitive and nearly deterministic

Inflammatory Mechanisms Associated With Skeletal Muscle Sequelae After Stroke: Role Of Physical Exercise

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Inflammatory markers are increased systematically and locally (e.g., skeletal muscle) in stroke patients. Besides being associated with cardiovascular risk factors, proinflammatory cytokines seem to play a key role in muscle atrophy by regulating the pathways involved in this condition. As such, they may cause severe decrease in muscle strength and power, as well as impairment in cardiorespiratory fitness. On the other hand, physical exercise (PE) has been widely suggested as a powerful tool for treating stroke patients, since PE is able to regenerate, even if partially, physical and cognitive functions. However, the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of physical exercise in poststroke patients remain poorly understood. Thus, in this study we analyze the candidate mechanisms associated with muscle atrophy in stroke patients, as well as the modulatory effect of inflammation in this condition. Later, we suggest the two strongest anti-inflammatory candidate mechanisms, myokines and the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, which may be activated by physical exercise and may contribute to a decrease in proinflammatory markers of poststroke patients.2016Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento (CNPq-BPQ)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq