Global and local detection of liver steatosis from ultrasound

Liver steatosis is a common disease usually associated with social and genetic factors. Early detection and quantification is important since it can evolve to cirrhosis. Steatosis is usually a diffuse liver disease, since it is globally affected. However, steatosis can also be focal affecting only some foci difficult to discriminate. In both cases, steatosis is detected by laboratorial analysis and visual inspection of ultrasound images of the hepatic parenchyma. Liver biopsy is the most accurate diagnostic method but its invasive nature suggest the use of other non-invasive methods, while visual inspection of the ultrasound images is subjective and prone to error. In this paper a new Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system for steatosis classification and analysis is presented, where the Bayes Factor, obatined from objective intensity and textural features extracted from US images of the liver, is computed in a local or global basis. The main goal is to provide the physician with an application to make it faster and accurate the diagnosis and quantification of steatosis, namely in a screening approach. The results showed an overall accuracy of 93.54% with a sensibility of 95.83% and 85.71% for normal and steatosis class, respectively. The proposed CAD system seemed suitable as a graphical display for steatosis classification and comparison with some of the most recent works in the literature is also presented

An ultrasound based computer-aided diagnosis tool for steatosis detection

Liver steatosis is a common disease usually associated with social and genetic factors. Early detection and quantification is important since it can evolve to cirrhosis. In this paper, a new computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for steatosis classification, in a local and global basis, is presented. Bayes factor is computed from objective ultrasound textural features extracted from the liver parenchyma. The goal is to develop a CAD screening tool, to help in the steatosis detection. Results showed an accuracy of 93.33%, with a sensitivity of 94.59% and specificity of 92.11%, using the Bayes classifier. The proposed CAD system is a suitable graphical display for steatosis classification

Framing program repair as code completion

Many techniques have contributed to the advancement of automated program repair, such as: generate and validate approaches, constraint-based solvers and even neural machine translation. Simultaneously, artificial intelligence has allowed the creation of general-purpose pre-trained models that support several downstream tasks. In this paper, we describe a technique that takes advantage of a generative model - CodeGPT - to automatically repair buggy programs by making use of its code completion capabilities. We also elaborate on where to perform code completion in a buggy line and how we circumvent the open-ended nature of code generation to appropriately fit the new code in the original program. Furthermore, we validate our approach on the ManySStuBs4j dataset containing real-world open-source projects and show that our tool is able to fix 1739 programs out of 6415 - a 27% repair rate. The repaired programs range from single-line changes to multiple line modifications. In fact, our technique is able to fix programs which were missing relatively complex expressions prior to being analyzed. In the end, we present case studies that showcase different scenarios our technique was able to handle.This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, within project LA/P/0063/2020. Francisco Ribeiro would like to acknowledge a PhD scholarship with reference SFRH/BD/144938/2019. Rui Abreu would like to acknowledge FCT through reference UIDB/50021/2020, the SecurityAware Project (ref. CMU/TIC/0064/2019) -also funded by the Carnegie Mellon Program, and the FaultLocker Project (ref. PTDC/CCI-COM/29300/2017)

Radiographers’ perceptions on the implementation of European BSS Directive (2013/59/Euratom): a local study

The field of medical imaging, like others in the area of healthcare provision, evolves and operates within complex environments. Thus, it must be a constant goal, maintaining and improving the levels of quality and safety, depending on the development of systems and a culture that can integrate individuals with technology and processes 1,2. The promotion of analysis or review of imaging procedures, motivated by the risk of ionizing radiation, is essential to improve the quality and related outcomes of care provided to the patient 3,4.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Risk assessment: Information for qualitative estimation of probability and severity in high risk work context

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards a green ranking for programming languages

While in the past the primary goal to optimize software was the run time optimization, nowadays there is a growing awareness of the need to reduce energy consumption. Additionally, a growing number of developers wish to become more energy-aware when programming and feel a lack of tools and the knowledge to do so.In this paper we define a ranking of energy efficiency in programming languages. We consider a set of computing problems implemented in ten well-known programming languages, and monitored the energy consumed when executing each language. Our preliminary results show that although the fastest languages tend to be the lowest consuming ones, there are other interesting cases where slower languages are more energy efficient than faster ones.This work is financed by the ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 Programme and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016718. The second author is also sponsored by FCT grant SFRH/BD/112733/2015

Educação médica em Portugal

Copyright © Ordem dos Médicos 2016Medical education is an always evolving métier and mission. More than just emphasizing scientific knowledge, it is nowadays expected that it incorporates clinical reasoning, practical skills, and stimulates the development of character, compassion, and integrity. Most medical schools education results chiefly from tradition rather than evidence, and little has changed with regard to delivering top notch professionals in healthcare.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Revestimentos tradicionais como proteção de betões de elevado volume de cinzas volantes face à carbonatação

Os betões de elevado volume de cinzas volantes poderão ser materiais com melhor desempenho do que os betões correntes de cimento Portland. Além disso, são ambientalmente mais sustentáveis porque a sua composição contém menos clínquer e, ainda, porque incorporam um subproduto industrial poluente. No entanto, a sua resistência à carbonatação é reduzida, porque, através da própria reação pozolânica, dá-se a neutralização do hidróxido de cálcio, reduzindo o seu nível de alcalinidade, tão necessário para manter a passivação das armaduras. Uma das formas de aumentar a resistência ao ataque por carbonatação poderá estar na consideração da existência do revestimento do betão. De facto, na grande maioria das construções correntes, a presença de um revestimento sobre o betão é uma realidade, muitas vezes ignorada no estudo da durabilidade. Por este motivo, investigou-se qual a eficiência dos revestimentos quando aplicados sobre um betão de elevado volume de cinzas volantes. Deu-se prioridade aos revestimentos tradicionais sem pintura, de base cimentícia, cal hidratada ou ambos. Também se avaliou um revestimento com base em cinzas volantes. Submeteram-se a ensaios de carbonatação acelerada os betões revestidos, bem como as argamassas representativas das camadas dos revestimentos. Os resultados foram excelentes, observando-se que o desempenho dos betões revestidos foi, em média, superior a 35% face ao betão não revestido.Os autores agradecem às equipas do Laboratório de Materiais de Construção da Universidade do Minho e da Unidade de Investigação e Desenvolvimento de Materiais da ESTG do Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo na colaboração desta investigação. Agradecem também à Secil SA. e Mota Engil SA pela amável cedência do cimento e das cinzas volantes, respetivamente. As instalações do MEV e do DRX foram financiadas por fundos do FEDER através do QREN – Aviso SAIECT-IEC/2/2010, Operação NORTE-07-0162-FEDER-000050info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio