A visual programming language for soccer

The use of Information Technologies (IT) in high competition sports is an instrument often used. However, the majority of the performers, including technical teams, do not have skills to program those IT tools to their needs. In this paper we present the low level implementation of a visual programming language (VPL) that allows the user without programming expertise to produce relatively complex programs by drawing them on a web application. The VPL tool application is illustrated by applying it to detect programmed situations from a soccer game, using previously obtained tracking data. The tool can be applied to other collective ball sports

On the impact of a tax shock in Portugal

In 1999, Cavaco Silva, the Portuguese Prime Minister from 1985 to 1995, proposed a comprehensive tax reform package, which is to this day the basic reference in the tax policy debate in Portugal. A tax shock would consist of 4pp cuts in the corporate income tax and in the firms’ social security contribution rates, and a 5pp reduction in the highest personal income tax rate. These cuts would be financed by combating tax evasion, curbing wasteful public expenditure and, if necessary, by increasing the VAT rate by up to 2pp. Using a dynamic general equilibrium model to evaluate the effects of this tax shock, we find that the long- term GDP gains would be between 0.72% and 2.91% while the effects on lifetime private welfare would range between –0.99% and 0.9%. The efficiency of this tax reform package depends critically on the way the tax cuts are financed to ensure deficit neutrality. Because investment is subject to adjustment costs, to alleviate the long-run trade-off between GDP and welfare, tax policy changes must induce a significant increase in net labor income.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modulation of CD4(+) T Cell-Dependent Specific Cytotoxic CD8(+) T Cells Differentiation and Proliferation by the Timing of Increase in the Pathogen Load

Background. Following infection with viruses, bacteria or protozoan parasites, naive antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells undergo a process of differentiation and proliferation to generate effector cells. Recent evidences suggest that the timing of generation of specific effector CD8(+) T cells varies widely according to different pathogens. We hypothesized that the timing of increase in the pathogen load could be a critical parameter governing this process. Methodology/Principal Findings. Using increasing doses of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi to infect C57BL/6 mice, we observed a significant acceleration in the timing of parasitemia without an increase in mouse susceptibility. in contrast, in CD8 deficient mice, we observed an inverse relationship between the parasite inoculum and the timing of death. These results suggest that in normal mice CD8(+) T cells became protective earlier, following the accelerated development of parasitemia. the evaluation of specific cytotoxic responses in vivo to three distinct epitopes revealed that increasing the parasite inoculum hastened the expansion of specific CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells following infection. the differentiation and expansion of T. cruzi-specific CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells is in fact dependent on parasite multiplication, as radiation-attenuated parasites were unable to activate these cells. We also observed that, in contrast to most pathogens, the activation process of T. cruzi-specific CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells was dependent on MHC class II restricted CD4(+) T cells. Conclusions/Significance. Our results are compatible with our initial hypothesis that the timing of increase in the pathogen load can be a critical parameter governing the kinetics of CD4(+) T cell-dependent expansion of pathogen-specific CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Millennium Institute for Vaccine Development and TechnologyConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, CINTERGEN, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, São Paulo, BrazilUniv Fed Rio de Janeiro, Inst Biofis Carlos Chagas Filho, Ilha Fundao, Ctr Ciencias Saude, BR-21941 Rio de Janeiro, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, CINTERGEN, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, São Paulo, BrazilMillennium Institute for Vaccine Development and Technology: CNPq - 420067/2005-1Web of Scienc

Measuring wage inequality under right censoring

In this paper we investigate potential changes which may have occurred over the last two decades in the probability mass of the right tail of the wage distribution, through the analysis of the corresponding tail index. In specific, a conditional tail index estimator is introduced which explicitly allows for right tail censoring (top-coding), which is a feature of the widely used current population survey (CPS), as well as of other surveys. Ignoring the top-coding may lead to inconsistent estimates of the tail index and to under or over statements of inequality and of its evolution over time. Thus, having a tail index estimator that explicitly accounts for this sample characteristic is of importance to better understand and compute the tail index dynamics in the censored right tail of the wage distribution. The contribution of this paper is threefold: i) we introduce a conditional tail index estimator that explicitly handles the top-coding problem, and evaluate its finite sample performance and compare it with competing methods; ii) we highlight that the factor values used to adjust the top-coded wage have changed over time and depend on the characteristics of individuals, occupations and industries, and propose suitable values; and iii) we provide an in-depth empirical analysis of the dynamics of the US wage distribution's right tail using the public-use CPS database from 1992 to 2017

Measuring wage inequality under right censoring

A conditional tail index estimator is introduced which explicitly allows for right-tail censoring (top-coding). We show that the factor values used to adjust top-coded wages have changed over time and depend on individuals' characteristics, occupations and industries, and propose suitable values. Specifically, contrasting the results of our approach with those of a conservative fixed adjustment factor of 1.5 (used in the literature), suggests that wage inequality in 2017 measured with the Gini coefficient is larger than that suggested by the fixed adjustment factor.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

First records of Fistularia petimba and Diodon eydouxii, for the Azores, with notes on the occurrence of three additional species

Two new records of fishes from the Azores are reported: Fistularia petimba and Diodon eydouxii. The occurrence of Centracanthus cirrus, Decapterus macarellus and Priacanthus arenatus in Azorean waters is confirmed

Geometric contrast feature for automatic visual counting of honey bee brood capped cells

Assessment of honey bee colony strength by measuring adults or brood is often required for ecological studies. The brood has typically been estimated through a subjective mode (Lieberfelder method), although it can also be objectively determined by counting (manually or automatically) the brood cells (capped or uncapped) from digital images. The manual counting of capped cells is highly prone to errors and a time-consuming and tedious task. An automatic way to accomplish that task allows reducing those drawbacks. The main challenge for developing an automatic method is, however, the presence of intraclass color variation; it is not possible to make a reliable detection based just on the pixel color presented by the capped cells. While several researchers are using the Hough transform to solve that problem, at certain light, noise, and surface conditions the automatic detection fails. After carefully observing capped cell regions of several combs, we identified a set of geometrical relations that could be used to build a consistent contrast feature. That feature is the key to detect the capped cells with a high accuracy in our work. A functional optimizer is performing a searching on the image looking for the locations that maximize the contrast on that feature. Our experimental results are showing a good detection rate (over 96%), despite the wide intraclass color variation. This research is funded through the 2013-2014 BiodivERsA/FACCE-JPI Joint call for research proposals, with the national funders FCT (Portugal), CNRS (France), and MEC (Spain).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Open source technologies involved in constructing a web-based football information system

The current information systems and match analysis software associated to professional football output a huge amount of statistics. Many football professionals are particularly interested in real time information about the tactical plan occurring during the match, and the relations between that information and what was prepared in the training sessions. It is fundamental to have on the bench, and on-the-fly, the most relevant information each time they have to take a decision. In this paper, we present a set of open source technologies involved in building a multi-platform web based integrated football information system, supported in three main modules: user interfaces, databases, and the tactical plan detection and classification. We show that the selected technologies are suitable for those modules, allowing field occurrences to trigger meaningful information

A computer vision based web application for tracking soccer players

Soccer is a sport where everyone that is involved with it make all the efforts aiming for excellence. Not only the players need to show their skills on the pitch but also the coach, and the remaining staff, need to have their own tools so that they can perform at higher levels. Footdata is a project to build a new web application product for soccer (football), which integrates two fundamental components of this sport's world: the social and the professional. While the former is an enhanced social platform for soccer professionals and fans, the later can be considered as a Soccer Resource Planning, featuring a system for acquisition and processing information to meet all the soccer management needs. In this paper we focus only in a specific module of the professional component. We will describe the section of the web application that allows to analyse movements and tactics of the players using images directly taken from the pitch or from videos, we will show that it is possible to draw players and ball movements in a web application and detect if those movements occur during a game. © 2014 Springer International Publishing