Análise de atividade de água em alimentos armazenados no interior de granjas avícolas

Na avicultura algumas integrações têm a prática de estocar as dietas por vários dias dentro da granja e muitas vezes, essas são submetidas a condições inadequadas de armazenamento. Os dados relacionados aos fatores ambientais, especialmente temperatura e umidade relativa do ambiente, tempo de estocagem e principalmente atividade de água (a w) do alimento, são fatores importantes que influenciam o crescimento fúngico e produção de micotoxinas no substrato, tornandose importantes para o estabelecimento de um programa de prevenção e controle deste agente (ORRIS, 1999). Este trabalho objetivou analisar a atividade de água em dietas animais para verificar o potencial de crescimento fúngico e a forma de armazenamento do produto. Desta forma, foi estudada a atividade de água da dieta comercial de empresa de integração avícola no Rio Grande do Sul, antes da entrega ao criador e no último dia de armazenamento, nas diferentes estações do ano. Assim, buscou-se contribuir para a verificação das condições de conservação do alimento e dos possíveis riscos de contaminação, auxiliando na prevenção de fungos e toxinas de importância avícola e com reflexos na saúde pública.Também foi determinada a umidade e a isoterma de adsorção destes alimentos, para auxiliar na compreensão sobre a forma de armazenamento. Pelos resultados encontrados ficou confirmado o aumento da atividade de água após o período de armazenamento da dieta, correspondendo ao valor de 0.681 de aw na fábrica e 0.693 de aw na granja. No entanto, os valores de atividade de água não estavam inseridos nos limites mínimos de crescimento fúngico (0.78 de aw) e produção de aflatoxinas (0.86 de aw). Houve correlação linear positiva entre atividade de água e umidade da ração, tanto na fábrica quanto na granja. A isoterma de adsorção apresentou aumento da umidade com o aumento da atividade de água. Não houve correlação entre atividade de água e ppb de aflatoxina encontrados nas dietas

Renormalization of Optical Excitations in Molecules near a Metal Surface

The lowest electronic excitations of benzene and a set of donor-acceptor molecular complexes are calculated for the gas phase and on the Al(111) surface using the many-body Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE). The energy of the charge-transfer excitations obtained for the gas phase complexes are found to be around 10% lower than the experimental values. When the molecules are placed outside the surface, the enhanced screening from the metal reduces the exciton binding energies by several eVs and the transition energies by up to 1 eV depending on the size of the transition-generated dipole. As a striking consequence we find that close to the metal surface the optical gap of benzene can exceed its quasiparticle gap. A classical image charge model for the screened Coulomb interaction can account for all these effects which, on the other hand, are completely missed by standard time-dependent density functional theory.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; revised versio

Riemann-Langevin Particle Filtering in Track-Before-Detect

Track-before-detect (TBD) is a powerful approach that consists in providing the tracker with sensor measurements directly without pre-detection. Due to the measurement model non-linearities, online state estimation in TBD is most commonly solved via particle filtering. Existing particle filters for TBD do not incorporate measurement information in their proposal distribution. The Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) is a sampling method whose proposal is able to exploit all available knowledge of the posterior (that is, both prior and measurement information). This letter synthesizes recent advances in LMC-based filtering to describe the Riemann-Langevin particle filter and introduces its novel application to TBD. The benefits of our approach are illustrated in a challenging low-noise scenario.Comment: Minor grammatical update

Engineering regulated open multiagent systems

In this thesis, w e focus on the d e velopment o f normati v e open multiagent systems. The y are systems in which heterogeneous and autonomous agents may need to coexist in a complex social and legal framework that can evolve to address the different and often conflicting objecti ves of the man y stak eholders inv olved. This thesis presents ROMAS, a set o f methods and tools for analyzing and designing systems o f this kind. R OMAS inte grates the analysis, design and v erification o f these systems by means o f a metamodel, a methodology that includes specific de v elopment guidelines and a model-dri ven CASE tool.The author wish to thank R. Bejar and F. Manya for supervising this PhD thesis. Supported by MINECO projects TIN2009-14704-C03-01 and TIN2010-20967-C04-01/03.Garcia Marques, ME. (2014). Engineering regulated open multiagent systems. AI Communications. 27:417-419. https://doi.org/10.3233/AIC-1406104174192

Ciência Cidadã nos Açores : o uso de joaninhas (Coleptera: Coccinellidae) como espécies-modelo

Dissertação de Mestrado, Biodiversidade e Biotecnologia, 27 março de 2019, Universidade dos Açores.O presente trabalho pretende relatar os primeiros avanços realizados no cenário de um programa de Ciência Cidadã nos Açores, com vista a detetar espécies de joaninhas não nativas na região. Assim, este trabalho consistiu, em primeiro lugar, na compilação e organização de dados sobre as joaninhas historicamente referenciadas para o arquipélago dos Açores e, em segundo lugar, com essa informação, desenvolver uma interface com os cidadãos. De forma a ajudar na recolha de dados, foram elaborados guias de campo e de laboratório para a observação e identificação de joaninhas, sempre no âmbito da Ciência Cidadã. Todos os protocolos e chave de identificação foram, posteriormente, testados por grupos de voluntários pertencentes às escolas da Ribeira Grande, da Lagoa e valências da Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Ribeira Grande. Foram criadas, também, plataformas virtuais (página Web e página Facebook) com o intuito de permitir ao cidadão comum contribuição com dados através das suas próprias observações. Essas contribuições serão, posteriormente, utilizadas na investigação, por técnicos qualificados, de maneira a poderem ser utilizadas na identificação de potenciais invasoras.ABSTRACT: The present work intends to report the first achievements made in the scenario of a Citizen Science program in the Azores, in order to detect non-native ladybird species in the region. Thus, this work consisted, firstly, in the compilation and organization of data on the ladybirds historically referenced in the Azores archipelago, and, secondly, consisted in the development of an interface, with the citizens, using the information. In order to assist in the collection of data, field and laboratory guides were developed for the observation and identification of ladybirds, always within the scope of Citizen Science. All guides and identification keys were later tested by groups of volunteers from schools in Ribeira Grande and Lagoa and from valences of Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Ribeira Grande. Virtual platforms (Web and Facebook pages) were also created in order to enable the average citizen to contribute with data through their own observations. These contributions will subsequently be used in the investigation by qualified technicians so that they can be used in the identification of potentials invaders

Dispositional beliefs regarding “affect as information” determine the perception of persuasive self-efficacy

In this paper, we approach the relationship between believing that affect informs about the validity of a claim and believing that one persuasive strategy will be more or less efficient in changing one’s own attitude. In one study, participants were asked to select from a set of features of a persuasive context those they perceived to have more persuasive power. Results showed that these selections were clearly clustered in two groups, suggesting that individuals tend to select either more cognitive features or more experiential affective features. Individual measures regarding participants’ need for cognition and faith in intuition did not explain the tendency to select more one type of cluster or another, but this selection was determined by how much people generally believe that affect informs about the validity or goodness of a claim

The effect of facial occlusion on facial impressions of trustworthiness and dominance

Recognizing the role that facial appearance plays in guiding social interactions, here we investigated how occlusions of the bottom-face region affect facial impressions of trustworthiness and dominance. Previous studies suggesting that different facial features impact inferences on these traits sustain the hypothesis that wearing a face mask will differently affect each trait inference. And specifically, that trustworthiness impressions will be more disrupted by this type of face occlusion than dominance impressions. In two studies, we addressed this possibility by occluding the bottom face region of faces that were previously shown to convey different levels of dominance and trustworthiness, and tested differences in the ability to discriminate between these trait levels across occlusion conditions. In Study 1 faces were occluded by a mask, and in Study 2 by a square image. In both studies, results showed that although facial occlusions generally reduced participants’ confidence on their trait judgments, the ability to discriminate facial trustworthiness was more strongly affected than the ability to discriminate facial dominance. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Determinants of electoral behavior : a study using individual-level data

Previous research on the impact of reforms to the Portuguese electoral system has assessed mechanical effects assuming that the behavior of individuals would remain the same. We improve on this state of affairs by using a rich dataset to study the impact of district magnitude on three relevant decisions made by individuals: the decision to vote or abstain, the decision to vote sincerely or not and the party choice decision. Then, we use our models to predict the effects of four alternative scenarios: uniform-size circles, a reduction of Members of Parliament to 180, a national circle and single-member circles. Besides making contributions to the understanding of how several individual and contextual-level variables shape the voting behavior of the Portuguese, we make four additional contributions in this study. Firstly, we show that the relationship between district magnitude and the probability of abstention is negative and shows diminishing returns. Secondly, we show that the impact of district magnitude on the probability of voting strategically is strikingly similar to its impact on the probability of abstaining. Thirdly, we show that district magnitude plays an important role in shaping the choice of party by individuals. Finally, by using the models estimated we quantify the impact of different types of redistricting on abstention, sincere voting and party choice

How does the presence of others influence control inhibition? Contradictory evidence using an antisaccade and stop signal task

Inhibitory control (IC) is defined as the (in)ability to change, suppress, or delay a response that is no longer required under the current circumstances. This ability was previously argued to increase in social contexts, based on Stroop’s performance, showing that participants performed the Stroop task better in others’ presence than alone. In this paper, we extend the testing of this same hypothesis to the use of two other tasks that Mitake et al. (2000) show to grasp the same IC ability; the Antisaccade and Stop signal tasks. If Stroop’s performance was capturing the impact of the presence of others on CI abilities, the effect would generalize to performance on these tasks. This hypothesis was only generally supported by stop signal task performance; those in the presence condition were significantly more efficient than those in the alone conditions. For the Antisaccade tasks, evidence shows that higher levels of interference occurs in the presence of others condition for participants’ fastest responses We discuss how this evidence contributes to the literature suggesting that the two tasks may index different constructs.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio