Mobile five senses augmented reality system: technology acceptance study

The application of the most recent technologies is fundamental to add value to tourism experiences, as well as in other economic sectors. Mobile Five Senses Augmented Reality (M5SAR) system is a mobile guide instrument for cultural, historical, and museum events. In order to realize the proclaimed five senses, the system has two main modules: a (i) mobile application which deals mainly with the senses of sight and hearing, using for that the mobile device camera to recognize and track on-the-fly (museum's) objects and give related information about them; and a (ii) portable device capable of enhancing the augmented reality (AR) experience to the full five senses through the stimulus of touch, taste, and smell, by associating itself to the users' smartphone or tablet. This paper briefly presents the system's architecture but, the main focus is on the analysis of the users' acceptance for this technology, namely the AR (software) application, and its integration with the (hardware) device to achieve the five senses AR. Results show that social influence, effort expectancy, and facilitating conditions are the key constructs that drive the users to accept and M5SAR's technology.Funding Agency Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Laboratory of Robotics and Engineering Systems, LARSyS UID/EEA/50009/2019 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Arts and Communication Research Center, CIAC UID/Multi/04019/2019 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-Being, CinTurs UID/SOC/04020/2019 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics, CEFAGE UID/ECO/04007/2019 Project M5SAR I&DT - CRESC ALGARVE2020 3322 PORTUGAL2020 European Union (EU) Instituto de Salud Carlos IIIinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pathogens in ornamental waters: a follow up study

Ornamental waters of easy access and populated with animals are quite attractive and can hide threats to human health. Here we evaluated the microbiota of ornamental waters in a Lisbon park. Water and biofilm samples where collected, in 2 lakes (L1-L2) and ornamental fountains (L3-L4) in February/2015. In May/2015 and monthly during a year (starting March/2016) samples from L4 where collected. Microbiota identification was performed as described previouslya. Biofilm assembly was monitored by crystal violet assay and SEMb and antibiotic susceptibility was performed by conventional methods. The results of the first water sampling (Feb/2015) revealed the presence of Enterobactereaceae and non-fermentative oxidase-positive bacteria. Fountains and lakes presented different microbota being the highest diversity found in L1 hosting a duck population. This result suggested the existence of an interplay between animal inhabitants and microbiota which was confirmed by the second sampling of L4 (May/2015). Between the 2 sampling events a fish population was introduced and the microbiota was completely altered with the appearance of a typical fish pathogen (Aeromonas spp). This tendency was also confirmed over 2016. K. pneumoniae and Aeromonas spp., present as planktonic and biofilm organized bacteria in 2015 showed an enhanced ability to assemble biofilms in vitro at 25 °C than at 37 °C. Bacteria recovered from biofilm showed an increased antibiotic resistance compared to planktonic counterparts. The pilot study conducted during 2015 and the follow up study (still in progress) support a periodic control of ornamental water microbiota as simple preventive measure to avoid potential health issues.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for the grant PEst-OE/CTM/UI0084/2011N/

A comprehensive examination of the local- and long-range structure of Sb6O13 pyrochlore oxide

The crystal structure of the Sb6O13 oxide, exhibiting a defect pyrochlore crystal structure with atomic vacancies, has been studied using a complete set of state-of-the-art techniques. The degree of antimony disproportionation in Sb3+ and Sb5+ valence states has been directly determined around 36% and 64%, respectively, using X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES). These findings are in excellent agreement with our Rietveld analysis of synchrotron X-ray (SXRD) and neutron powder diffraction (NPD) results. Moreover, the highly distorted Sb3+ coordination due to its lone electron pair has been critically revisited. The bonding distances and coordination of Sb3+ and Sb5+ species closely agree with an extensive dynamic and crystallographic determination using the Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) technique. Most importantly, the specific local disorder of the two distinctive Sb ions has been crosschecked monitoring their unusual Debye–Waller factors.Fil: Mayer, Sergio Federico. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; España. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Córdoba. Centro de Investigación en Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rodrigues, Joao Elias. Universidade de Sao Paulo; Brasil. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; EspañaFil: Marini, C.. CELLS–ALBA Synchrotron; EspañaFil: Fernández-Díaz, M.T.. Institut Laue Langevin; FranciaFil: Falcón, H.. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Córdoba; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Química. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Córdoba. Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Química; ArgentinaFil: Asensio, M. C.. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; EspañaFil: Alonso, J. A.. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; Españ

A comprehensive examination of the local- and long-range structure of Sb6O13 pyrochlore oxide

The crystal structure of the Sb6O13 oxide, exhibiting a defect pyrochlore crystal structure with atomic vacancies, has been studied using a complete set of state-of-the-art techniques. The degree of antimony disproportionation in Sb3+ and Sb5+ valence states has been directly determined around 36% and 64%, respectively, using X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES). These findings are in excellent agreement with our Rietveld analysis of synchrotron X-ray (SXRD) and neutron powder diffraction (NPD) results. Moreover, the highly distorted Sb3+ coordination due to its lone electron pair has been critically revisited. The bonding distances and coordination of Sb3+ and Sb5+ species closely agree with an extensive dynamic and crystallographic determination using the Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) technique. Most importantly, the specific local disorder of the two distinctive Sb ions has been crosschecked monitoring their unusual Debye–Waller factors.Fil: Mayer, Sergio Federico. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; España. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Córdoba. Centro de Investigación en Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rodrigues, Joao Elias. Universidade de Sao Paulo; Brasil. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; EspañaFil: Marini, C.. CELLS–ALBA Synchrotron; EspañaFil: Fernández-Díaz, M.T.. Institut Laue Langevin; FranciaFil: Falcón, H.. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Córdoba; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Química. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Córdoba. Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Química; ArgentinaFil: Asensio, M. C.. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; EspañaFil: Alonso, J. A.. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; Españ

Low intensity laser therapy accelerates muscle regeneration in aged rats

Background: Elderly people suffer from skeletal muscle disorders that undermine their daily activity and quality of life; some of these problems can be listed as but not limited to: sarcopenia, changes in central and peripheral nervous system, blood hypoperfusion, regenerative changes contributing to atrophy, and muscle weakness. Determination, proliferation and differentiation of satellite cells in the regenerative process are regulated by specific transcription factors, known as myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs). In the elderly, the activation of MRFs is inefficient which hampers the regenerative process. Recent studies found that low intensity laser therapy (LILT) has a stimulatory effect in the muscle regeneration process. However, the effects of this therapy when associated with aging are still unknown. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of LILT (λ=830 nm) on the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle of aged rats. Subjects and methods: The total of 56 male Wistar rats formed two population sets: old and young, with 28 animals in each set. Each of these sets were randomly divided into four groups of young rats (3 months of age) with n=7 per group and four groups of aged rats (10 months of age) with n=7 per group. These groups were submitted to cryoinjury + laser irradiation, cryoinjury only, laser irradiation only and the control group (no cryoinjury/no laser irradiation). The laser treatment was performed for 5 consecutive days. The first laser application was done 24 h after the injury (on day 2) and on the seventh day, the TA muscle was dissected and removed under anesthesia. After this the animals were euthanized. Histological analyses with toluidine blue as well as hematoxylin-eosin staining (for counting the blood capillaries) were performed for the lesion areas. In addition, MyoD and VEGF mRNA was assessed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Results: The results showed significant elevation (p<0.05) in MyoD and VEGF genes expression levels. Moreover, capillary blood count was more prominent in elderly rats in laser irradiated groups when compared to young animals. Conclusion: In conclusion, LILT increased the maturation of satellite cells into myoblasts and myotubes, enhancing the regenerative process of aged rats irradiated with laser.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (grant RO1AI050875

Interpretable Ensembles of Classifiers for Uncertain Data with Bioinformatics Applications

Data uncertainty remains a challenging issue in many applications, but few classification algorithms can effectively cope with it. An ensemble approach for uncertain categorical features has recently been proposed, achieving promising results. It consists in biasing the sampling of features for each model in an ensemble so that less uncertain features are more likely to be sampled. Here we extend this idea of biased sampling and propose two new approaches: one for selecting training instances for each model in an ensemble and another for sampling features to be considered when splitting a node in a Random Forest training. We applied these approaches to classify ageing-related genes and predict drugs' side effects based on uncertain features representing protein-protein and protein-chemical interactions. We show that ensembles based on our proposed approaches achieve better predictive performance. In particular, our proposed approaches improved the performance of a Random Forest based on the most sophisticated approach for handling uncertain data in ensembles of this kind. Furthermore, we propose two new approaches for interpreting an ensemble of Naive Bayes classifiers and analyse their results on our datasets of ageing-related genes and drug's side effects

Parasite Glycobiology:A Bittersweet Symphony

Human infections caused by parasitic protozoans and helminths are among the world's leading causes of death. More than a million people die each year from diseases like malaria and neglected tropical diseases like leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, and schistosomiasis. Patients also endure disabilities that cause lifelong suffering and that affect productivity and development [1]. More insidiously, parasites generate important economic losses, since they often also infect commercially valuable animals. Worldwide, exposure to parasites is increasing due to growing international travel and migrations, as well as climate changes, which affect the geographic distribution of the parasite vectors. The parasitic threat is also aggravated by the rise of the immunocompromised population, which is particularly sensitive to parasite infections (e.g., individuals with AIDS and other immunodeficiencies). A common feature of protozoan parasites and helminths is the synthesis of glycoconjugates and glycan-binding proteins for protection and to interact and respond to changes in their environment. To address the many challenges associated with the study of the structure, the biosynthesis, and the biology of parasitic glycans, the authors of this article have established GlycoPar, a European Marie Curie training program steered by some of the world's academic leaders in the field of parasite glycobiology, in close association with European industrial enterprises. The main scientific goal of this network is the description of novel paradigms and models by which parasite glycoconjugates play a role in the successful colonization of the different hosts. By means of a training-through-research program, the aim of the network is to contribute to the training of a generation of young scientists capable of tackling the challenges posed by parasite glycobiology

Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis cultivation in tubular photobioreactor: Use of no-cost CO2 from ethanol fermentation

The present study aimed at evaluating the production of Arthrospira platensis in tubular photobioreactor using CO2 from ethanol fermentation. The results of these cultivations were compared to those obtained using CO2 from cylinder at different protocols of simultaneous ammonium sulfate and sodium nitrate feeding. Maximum cell concentration (X-m), cell productivity (P-x), nitrogen-to-cell conversion factor (Y-X/N), and biomass composition (total lipids and proteins) were selected as responses and evaluated by analysis of variance. The source of CO2 did not exert any significant statistical influence on these responses, which means that the flue gas from ethanol fermentation could successfully be used as a carbon source as well as to control the medium pH, thus contributing to reduce the greenhouse effect. The results taken as a whole demonstrated that the best combination of responses mean values (X-m = 4.543 g L-1; P-x = 0.460 g L-1 d(-1); Y-X/N = 15.6 g g(-1); total lipids = 8.39%; total proteins = 18.7%) was obtained using as nitrogen source a mixture of 25% NaNO3 and 75% (NH4)(2)SO4, both expressed as nitrogen. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.CAPES (Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior) [0252/10-7]Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES