Temporal patterns of TV watching for Portuguese viewers

Audiometer systems provide enormous amounts of detailed TV watching data. Several relevant and interdependent factors may influence TV viewers' behavior. In this work we focus on the time factor and derive Temporal Patterns of TV watching, based on panel data. Clustering base attributes are originated from 1440 binary minute-related attributes, capturing the TV watching status (watch/not watch). Since there are around 2500 panel viewers a data reduction procedure is first performed. K-Means algorithm is used to obtain daily clusters of viewers. Weekly patterns are then derived which rely on daily patterns. The obtained solutions are tested for consistency and stability. Temporal TV watching patterns provide new insights concerning Portuguese TV viewers' behavior

Incorporation of either molybdenum or tungsten into formate dehydrogenase from Desulfovibrio alaskensis NCIMB 13491; EPR assignment of the proximal iron-sulfur cluster to the pterin cofactor in formate dehydrogenases from sulfate-reducing bacteria

J Biol Inorg Chem (2004) 9: 145–151 DOI 10.1007/s00775-003-0506-zWe report the characterization of the molecular properties and EPR studies of a new formate dehydrogenase (FDH) from the sulfate-reducing organism Desulfovibrio alaskensis NCIMB 13491. FDHs are enzymes that catalyze the two-electron oxidation of formate to carbon dioxide in several aerobic and anaerobic organisms. D. alaskensis FDH is a heterodimeric protein with a molecular weight of 126+/-2 kDa composed of two subunits, alpha=93+/-3 kDa and beta=32+/-2 kDa, which contains 6+/-1 Fe/molecule, 0.4+/-0.1 Mo/molecule, 0.3+/-0.1 W/molecule, and 1.3+/-0.1 guanine monophosphate nucleotides. The UV-vis absorption spectrum of D. alaskensis FDH is typical of an iron-sulfur protein with a broad band around 400 nm. Variable-temperature EPR studies performed on reduced samples of D. alaskensis FDH showed the presence of signals associated with the different paramagnetic centers of D. alaskensis FDH. Three rhombic signals having g-values and relaxation behavior characteristic of [4Fe-4S] clusters were observed in the 5-40 K temperature range. Two EPR signals with all the g-values less than two, which accounted for less than 0.1 spin/protein, typical of mononuclear Mo(V) and W(V), respectively, were observed. The signal associated with the W(V) ion has a larger deviation from the free electron g-value, as expected for tungsten in a d(1) configuration, albeit with an unusual relaxation behavior. The EPR parameters of the Mo(V) signal are within the range of values typically found for the slow-type signal observed in several Mo-containing proteins belonging to the xanthine oxidase family of enzymes. Mo(V) resonances are split at temperatures below 50 K by magnetic coupling with one of the Fe/S clusters. The analysis of the inter-center magnetic interaction allowed us to assign the EPR-distinguishable iron-sulfur clusters with those seen in the crystal structure of a homologous enzyme

Artery/Vein Vessel Tree Identification in Near-Infrared Reflectance Retinographies

This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-019-00235-x[Abstract]: An accurate identification of the retinal arteries and veins is a relevant issue in the development of automatic computer-aided diagnosis systems that facilitate the analysis of different relevant diseases that affect the vascular system as diabetes or hypertension, among others. The proposed method offers a complete analysis of the retinal vascular tree structure by its identification and posterior classification into arteries and veins using optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans. These scans include the near-infrared reflectance retinography images, the ones we used in this work, in combination with the corresponding histological sections. The method, firstly, segments the vessel tree and identifies its characteristic points. Then, Global Intensity-Based Features (GIBS) are used to measure the differences in the intensity profiles between arteries and veins. A k-means clustering classifier employs these features to evaluate the potential of artery/vein identification of the proposed method. Finally, a post-processing stage is applied to correct misclassifications using context information and maximize the performance of the classification process. The methodology was validated using an OCT image dataset retrieved from 46 different patients, where 2,392 vessel segments and 97,294 vessel points were manually labeled by an expert clinician. The method achieved satisfactory results, reaching a best accuracy of 93.35% in the identification of arteries and veins, being the first proposal that faces this issue in this image modality.This work is supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Government of Spain and FEDER funds of the European Union through the DTS18/00136 research project and by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Government of Spain through the DPI2015-69948-R research project. Also, this work has received financial support from the European Union (European Regional Development Fund—ERDF); the Xunta de Galicia, Centro singular de investigación de Galicia accreditation 2016–2019, Ref. ED431G/01; and Grupos de Referencia Competitiva, Ref. ED431C 2016-047.Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/01Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-04

Portuguese ornamental stones

Portugal produces a great diversity of ornamental stones. Besides the internationally known white and pink marbles, also light cream limestones are produced, as well as grey, yellow and pink granites, and dark grey slates. From these, limestones are the most request variety today, especially by the Chinese market

Feature Definition and Comprehensive Analysis on the Robust Identification of Intraretinal Cystoid Regions Using Optical Coherence Tomography Images

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] Currently, optical coherence tomography is one of the most used medical imaging modalities, offering cross-sectional representations of the studied tissues. This image modality is specially relevant for the analysis of the retina, since it is the internal part of the human body that allows an almost direct examination without invasive techniques. One of the most representative cases of use of this medical imaging modality is for the identification and characterization of intraretinal fluid accumulations, critical for the diagnosis of one of the main causes of blindness in developed countries: the Diabetic Macular Edema. The study of these fluid accumulations is particularly interesting, both from the point of view of pattern recognition and from the different branches of health sciences. As these fluid accumulations are intermingled with retinal tissues, they present numerous variants according to their severity, and change their appearance depending on the configuration of the device; they are a perfect subject for an in-depth research, as they are considered to be a problem without a strict solution. In this work, we propose a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the patterns that characterize them. We employed a pool of 11 different texture and intensity feature families (giving a total of 510 markers) which we have analyzed using three different feature selection strategies and seven complementary classification algorithms. By doing so, we have been able to narrow down and explain the factors affecting this kind of accumulations and tissue lesions by means of machine learning techniques with a pipeline specially designed for this purpose.Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Government of Spain, DTS18/00136 research project; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y Universidades, Government of Spain, RTI2018-095894-B-I00 research project, Ayudas para la formación de profesorado universitario (FPU), grant ref. FPU18/02271; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Government of Spain through the research project with reference PID2019-108435RB-I00; Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Universidade, Xunta de Galicia, Grupos de Referencia Competitiva, grant ref. ED431C 2020/24 and through the postdoctoral grant contract ref. ED481B 2021/059; Axencia Galega de Innovación (GAIN), Xunta de Galicia, grant ref. IN845D 2020/38; CITIC, Centro de Investigación de Galicia ref. ED431G 2019/01, receives financial support from Consellería de Educación, Universidade e Formación Profesional, Xunta de Galicia, through the ERDF (80%) and Secretaría Xeral de Universidades (20%). Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. Funding for open access charge: Universidade da Coruña/CISUGXunta de Galicia; ED431C 2020/24Xunta de Galicia; ED481B 2021/059Xunta de Galicia; IN845D 2020/38Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/0

Direct evaluation of mixed mode i+ii cohesive laws of wood by coupling mmb test with dic

grant number FCOMP-01-0124-287 FEDER-022692Governing cohesive laws in mixed mode I+II loading of Pinus pinaster Ait. are directly identified by coupling the mixed mode bending test with full-field displacements measured at the crack tip by Digital Image Correlation (DIC). A sequence of mixed mode ratios is studied. The proposed data reduction relies on: (i) the compliance-based beam method for evaluating strain energy release rate; (ii) the local measurement of displacements to compute the crack tip opening displacement; and (iii) an uncoupled approach for the reconstruction of the cohesive laws and its mode I and mode II components. Quantitative parameters are extracted from the set of cohesive laws components in function of the global phase angle. Linear functions were adjusted to reflect the observed trends and the pure modes (I and II) fracture parameters were estimated by extrapolation. Results show that the obtained assessments agree with previous experimental measurements addressing pure modes (I and II) loadings on this wood species, which reveals the appropriateness of the proposed methodology to evaluate the cohesive law under mixed mode loading and its components.publishersversionpublishe

Intraretinal Fluid Pattern Characterization in Optical Coherence Tomography Images

[Abstract] Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) has become a relevant image modality in the ophthalmological clinical practice, as it offers a detailed representation of the eye fundus. This medical imaging modality is currently one of the main means of identification and characterization of intraretinal cystoid regions, a crucial task in the diagnosis of exudative macular disease or macular edema, among the main causes of blindness in developed countries. This work presents an exhaustive analysis of intensity and texture-based descriptors for its identification and classification, using a complete set of 510 texture features, three state-of-the-art feature selection strategies, and seven representative classifier strategies. The methodology validation and the analysis were performed using an image dataset of 83 OCT scans. From these images, 1609 samples were extracted from both cystoid and non-cystoid regions. The different tested configurations provided satisfactory results, reaching a mean cross-validation test accuracy of 92.69%. The most promising feature categories identified for the issue were the Gabor filters, the Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), the Gray-Level Run-Length matrix (GLRL), and the Laws’ texture filters (LAWS), being consistently and considerably selected along all feature selector algorithms in the top positions of different relevance rankings.Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-047Xunta de Galicia; ED481A-2019/196This work is supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Government of Spain and FEDER funds of the European Union through the DTS18/00136 research projects and by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Government of Spain through the DPI2015-69948-R and RTI2018-095894-B-I00 research projects. Also, this work has received financial support from the European Union (European Regional Development Fund—ERDF) and the Xunta de Galicia, Grupos de Referencia Competitiva, Ref. ED431C 2016-047 and the Xunta de Galicia predoctoral grant contract ref. ED481A-2019/196

Re-evaluation of the spectroscopic data and redox properties

Eur. J. Biochem. 270, 3904–3915 (2003)The cytochrome c nitrite reductase is isolated from the membranes of the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio desulfuricans ATCC 27774 as a heterooligomeric complex composed by two subunits (61 kDa and 19 kDa) containing c-type hemes, encoded by the genes nrfA and nrfH,respectively. The extracted complex has in average a 2NrfA:1NrfH composition. The separation of ccNiR subunits from one another is accomplished by gel filtration chromatography in the presence of SDS. The amino-acid sequence and biochemical subunits characterization show that NrfA contains five hemes and NrfH four hemes. These considerations enabled the revision of a vast amount of existing spectroscopic data on the NrfHA complex that was not originally well interpreted due to the lackof knowledge on the heme content and the oligomeric enzyme status. Based on EPRandMo¨ ssbauer parameters and their correlation to structural information recently obtained from X-ray crystallography on the NrfA structure [Cunha, C.A., Macieira, S., Dias, J.M., Almeida, M.G., Gonçalves, L.M.L., Costa, C., Lampreia, J.,Huber,R., Moura, J.J.G., Moura, I. & Romão, M. (2003) J. Biol. Chem. 278, 17455– 17465], we propose the full assignment of midpoint reduction potentials values to the individual hemes.NrfAcontains the high-spin catalytic site ()80mV) as well as a quite unusual high reduction potential (+150 mV)/low-spin bis-His coordinated heme, considered to be the site where electrons enter. In addition, the reassessment of the spectroscopic data allowed the first partial spectroscopic characterization of theNrfH subunit. The four NrfH hemes are all in a low-spin state (S ¼ 1/2).One of them has a gmax at 3.55, characteristic of bis-histidinyl iron ligands in a noncoplanar arrangement, and has a positive reduction potential