Greywater impact on green roofs’ provision of ecosystem services

Previous research showed that some herbaceous perennial species could offer summertime cooling better than succulent species on green roofs (GRs), if supplementary irrigation is available during times of drought. In light of increasing water shortages, use of greywater (GW) instead of mains tap water (TW) for this purpose comes into focus. A glasshouse experiment was conducted in summer 2015 at the University of Reading (UK) to assess the impact of GW irrigation on the health, growth and functioning (in terms of leaf stomatal conductance (gs) and associated water uptake) of four plant genotypes (Salvia, Stachys, Heuchera and Sedum), and their ability to deliver ecosystem services, particularly cooling. Twenty-two replicates of each genotype, plus controls of bare, unvegetated substrate, were irrigated with fixed volumes of TW or synthetic GW for 6 weeks. Plant growth and visual quality, and gs were measured. In Week 7, daily water loss from each container following saturation was determined. For the first 6 weeks, plant growth, visual quality and gs were similar for both TW and GW treatments for all genotypes, indicating no negative impact of short-term GW irrigation and no apparent impact on cooling when plants were well-watered. However, in Week 7 water uptake (and thus presumably gs) was significantly lower for plants irrigated with GW compared to TW for some genotypes (Salvia and Heuchera), especially as substrate became drier, suggesting a reduction in evapotranspiration and potentially reduced cooling service when the soil is dry

CloudMed: plataforma de comunicações para medicina

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaOs recentes avanços das tecnologias de informação e comunicação têm criado novos cenários aplicacionais na área da telemedicina, nomeadamente na forma como integramos diferentes fontes de dados, como acedemos e partilhamos estes recursos em ambientes moveis e como integramos ferramentas cooperativas inspiradas no paradigma das redes sociais. Temos verificado nos últimos anos a terciarização de recursos computacionais, processo conhecido como Cloud Computing. Esta realidade cria novas oportunidades de exploração destes recursos para facilitar o acesso, partilha e integração de informação médica, em qualquer local e a qualquer hora. Mais ainda, a escalabilidade e fiabilidade oferecida por estas plataformas satisfazem os requisitos de serviço impostos a soluções telemáticas na área da saúde. Esta dissertação teve como objetivo estudar o paradigma de software como serviço, suportado por uma estrutura em Cloud, tendo em mente a sua utilização em cenários de telemedicina e tele-trabalho. Muito concretamente, desenvolveu-se uma plataforma Web de serviços orientada ás redes de imagem médica. Esta solução disponibiliza um ambiente cooperativo inovador onde os clínicos podem recolher dados, partilhar informação e aceder remotamente a recursos imagiológicos. Aspetos de segurança e interoperabilidade com os atuais sistemas e normas foram alvo de particular atenção.The recent technological developments in information and communications technologies are promoting new studies and research in telemedicine area, revolutionizing the access, integration and sharing of medical information. For instance, many systems have been focusing on ubiquity through the use of mobile computing and on enhance users cooperation through usage of social networking paradigms. In this regard, the rise of new model of outsourcing computing resources, which is known as Cloud computing, creates new possibilities to explore their bene_ts to facilitate the sharing and remote access to medical information, anywhere and anytime. Moreover, the scalability and reliability o_ered by Cloud platforms _t well to the medical area requirements. This dissertation aimed to analyze the current state of the art of Cloud Computing, namely studying their viability to support telemedicine and teleworking scenarios. The proposal was focused in the medical imaging _eld. The work resulted in a Cloud computing solution, following the software as a service model, to support cooperative tele-imagiology networks. It is a solution that allows users to setup collaborative environments in the _eld of imagiology, targeting the acceleration and improvement of decision-making processes. The proposal contemplates also other important issues like, for instance, security and interoperability with actual medical imaging systems

Sistemas interativos e distribuídos para telemedicina

doutoramento Ciências da ComputaçãoDurante as últimas décadas, as organizações de saúde têm vindo a adotar continuadamente as tecnologias de informação para melhorar o funcionamento dos seus serviços. Recentemente, em parte devido à crise financeira, algumas reformas no sector de saúde incentivaram o aparecimento de novas soluções de telemedicina para otimizar a utilização de recursos humanos e de equipamentos. Algumas tecnologias como a computação em nuvem, a computação móvel e os sistemas Web, têm sido importantes para o sucesso destas novas aplicações de telemedicina. As funcionalidades emergentes de computação distribuída facilitam a ligação de comunidades médicas, promovem serviços de telemedicina e a colaboração em tempo real. Também são evidentes algumas vantagens que os dispositivos móveis podem introduzir, tais como facilitar o trabalho remoto a qualquer hora e em qualquer lugar. Por outro lado, muitas funcionalidades que se tornaram comuns nas redes sociais, tais como a partilha de dados, a troca de mensagens, os fóruns de discussão e a videoconferência, têm o potencial para promover a colaboração no sector da saúde. Esta tese teve como objetivo principal investigar soluções computacionais mais ágeis que permitam promover a partilha de dados clínicos e facilitar a criação de fluxos de trabalho colaborativos em radiologia. Através da exploração das atuais tecnologias Web e de computação móvel, concebemos uma solução ubíqua para a visualização de imagens médicas e desenvolvemos um sistema colaborativo para a área de radiologia, baseado na tecnologia da computação em nuvem. Neste percurso, foram investigadas metodologias de mineração de texto, de representação semântica e de recuperação de informação baseada no conteúdo da imagem. Para garantir a privacidade dos pacientes e agilizar o processo de partilha de dados em ambientes colaborativos, propomos ainda uma metodologia que usa aprendizagem automática para anonimizar as imagens médicasDuring the last decades, healthcare organizations have been increasingly relying on information technologies to improve their services. At the same time, the optimization of resources, both professionals and equipment, have promoted the emergence of telemedicine solutions. Some technologies including cloud computing, mobile computing, web systems and distributed computing can be used to facilitate the creation of medical communities, and the promotion of telemedicine services and real-time collaboration. On the other hand, many features that have become commonplace in social networks, such as data sharing, message exchange, discussion forums, and a videoconference, have also the potential to foster collaboration in the health sector. The main objective of this research work was to investigate computational solutions that allow us to promote the sharing of clinical data and to facilitate the creation of collaborative workflows in radiology. By exploring computing and mobile computing technologies, we have designed a solution for medical imaging visualization, and developed a collaborative system for radiology, based on cloud computing technology. To extract more information from data, we investigated several methodologies such as text mining, semantic representation, content-based information retrieval. Finally, to ensure patient privacy and to streamline the data sharing in collaborative environments, we propose a machine learning methodology to anonymize medical images

A Recommender System Based on Cohorts’ Similarity

[Abstract] Aiming to better understand the genetic and environmental associations of Alzheimer's disease, many clinical trials and scientific studies have been conducted. However, these studies are often based on a small number of participants. To address this limitation, there is an increasing demand of multi-cohorts studies, which can provide higher statistical power and clinical evidence. However, this data integration implies dealing with the diversity of cohorts structures and the wide variability of concepts. Moreover, discovering similar cohorts to extend a running study is typically a demanding task. In this paper, we present a recommendation system to allow finding similar cohorts based on profile interests. The method uses collaborative filtering mixed with context-based retrieval techniques to find relevant cohorts on scientific literature about Alzheimer's diseases. The method was validated in a set of 62 cohorts.National Science Foundation (Portugal); POCI-01-0145-FEDER-01638

Enabling visual analysis in wireless sensor networks

This demo showcases some of the results obtained by the GreenEyes project, whose main objective is to enable visual analysis on resource-constrained multimedia sensor networks. The demo features a multi-hop visual sensor network operated by BeagleBones Linux computers with IEEE 802.15.4 communication capabilities, and capable of recognizing and tracking objects according to two different visual paradigms. In the traditional compress-then-analyze (CTA) paradigm, JPEG compressed images are transmitted through the network from a camera node to a central controller, where the analysis takes place. In the alternative analyze-then-compress (ATC) paradigm, the camera node extracts and compresses local binary visual features from the acquired images (either locally or in a distributed fashion) and transmits them to the central controller, where they are used to perform object recognition/tracking. We show that, in a bandwidth constrained scenario, the latter paradigm allows to reach better results in terms of application frame rates, still ensuring excellent analysis performance

Food chain inefficiency (FCI) : accounting conversion efficiencies across entire food supply chains to re-define food loss and waste

Achieving global food security requires a new approach that integrates not only all aspects of the growing, harvesting and processing of food (necessary to ensure sufficient affordable and sustainable production to alleviate hunger) but also the complexities associated with food consumption including deterring unhealthy overconsumption. Inefficiencies occur at various points along the agri-food supply chain but at present they are inadequately conceptualized via separate accounts of food loss, food waste, supply chain management, and public health. Here we re-define food loss and waste through the concept of conversion efficiency applied to the entire system, an approach up to now only applied to the primary processes of crop productivity. Nine conversion efficiencies are defined: sunlight capture efficiency; photosynthesis use efficiency; biomass allocation efficiency; harvesting efficiency; storage and distribution efficiency; processing efficiency; retailing efficiency; consumption efficiency; and dietary efficiency. Using the production and consumption of bread in the UK as an example, we demonstrate how efficiencies may be estimated and thus where the main inefficiencies lie, so indicating where the most significant improvements could be made. We suggest that our approach, which introduces the term Food Chain Inefficiency (FCI) to re-define food loss and waste, provides a rational and effective way to devise the practical interventions and policies needed to deliver a sustainable agri-food system

Nitric oxide from inflammatory origin impairs neural stem cell proliferation by inhibiting epidermal growth factor receptor signaling

Neuroinflammation is characterized by activation of microglial cells, followed by production of nitric oxide (NO), which may have different outcomes on neurogenesis, favoring or inhibiting this process. In the present study, we investigated how the inflammatory mediator NO can affect proliferation of neural stem cells (NSCs), and explored possible mechanisms underlying this effect. We investigated which mechanisms are involved in the regulation of NSC proliferation following treatment with an inflammatory stimulus (lipopolysaccharide plus IFN-gamma), using a culture system of subventricular zone (SVZ)-derived NSCs mixed with microglia cells obtained from wild-type mice (iNOS(+/+)) or from iNOS knockout mice (iNOS(-/-)). We found an impairment of NSC cell proliferation in iNOS(+/+) mixed cultures, which was not observed in iNOS(-/-) mixed cultures. Furthermore, the increased release of NO by activated iNOS(+/+) microglial cells decreased the activation of the ERK/MAPK signaling pathway, which was concomitant with an enhanced nitration of the EGF receptor. Preventing nitrogen reactive species formation with MnTBAP, a scavenger of peroxynitrite (ONOO-), or using the ONOO- degradation catalyst FeTMPyP cell proliferation and ERK signaling were restored to basal levels in iNOS(+/+) mixed cultures. Moreover, exposure to the NO donor NOC-18 (100 mu M), for 48 h, inhibited SVZ-derived NSC proliferation. Regarding the antiproliferative effect of NO, we found that NOC-18 caused the impairment of signaling through the ERK/MAPK pathway, which may be related to increased nitration of the EGF receptor in NSC. Using MnTBAP nitration was prevented, maintaining ERK signaling, rescuing NSC proliferation. We show that NO from inflammatory origin leads to a decreased function of the EGF receptor, which compromised proliferation of NSC. We also demonstrated that NO-mediated nitration of the EGF receptor caused a decrease in its phosphorylation, thus preventing regular proliferation signaling through the ERK/MAPK pathway.Foundation for Science and Technology, (FCT, Portugal); COMPETE; FEDER [PEst-C/SAU/LA0001/2013-2014, PEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2013-2014, PTDC/SAU-NEU/102612/2008, PTDC/NEU-OSD/0473/2012]; FCT, Portugal [SERH/BPD/78901/2011, SERH/BD/38127/2007, SFRH/BD/77903/2011, SFRH/BD/79308/2011]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio