A fly-by-wireless UAV platform based on a flexible and distributed system architecture

This paper reports and describes the diverse stages concerning the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) named “Aeronave Inteligente com Visão Artificial”, better known by its acronym as AIVA. The design and development of the first aerial platform, the onboard ommunications, the instrumentation system, the bidirectional communications platform to/from ground station, the flight control system, the navigation strategies, as well as the vision systems to help navigation and to carry out the planned surveillance missions, are addressed in this paper. One of the main innovative issues of this platform is the distributed onboard wireless network, based on Bluetooth technology and on a multiprocessor architecture system. These features increase the platform flexibility. The goals already accomplished so far reveal interesting developments to be used successfully in commercial UAV platforms

Microphone array for speaker localization and identification in shared autonomous vehicles

With the current technological transformation in the automotive industry, autonomous vehicles are getting closer to the Society of Automative Engineers (SAE) automation level 5. This level corresponds to the full vehicle automation, where the driving system autonomously monitors and navigates the environment. With SAE-level 5, the concept of a Shared Autonomous Vehicle (SAV) will soon become a reality and mainstream. The main purpose of an SAV is to allow unrelated passengers to share an autonomous vehicle without a driver/moderator inside the shared space. However, to ensure their safety and well-being until they reach their final destination, active monitoring of all passengers is required. In this context, this article presents a microphone-based sensor system that is able to localize sound events inside an SAV. The solution is composed of a Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) microphone array with a circular geometry connected to an embedded processing platform that resorts to Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology to successfully process in the hardware the sound localization algorithms.This work is supported by: European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project nº 039334; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039334]

Multiple Myeloma Treatment Guidelines by the Portuguese Group of Multiple Myeloma

The treatment of multiple myeloma has profoundly changed with the introduction of several innovative therapies. The optimization of therapeutic sequencing through the combined use of the various drugs developed in recent years and the attention given to the characteristics of patients have allowed the reduction of toxicities and increased survival and quality of life of patients with multiple myeloma. These treatment recommendations from the Portuguese Multiple Myeloma Group offer guidance for first-line treatment and progression/relapse situations. These recommendations are given highlighting the data that justify each choice and referring to the respective levels of evidence that support these options. Whenever possible, the respective national regulatory framework is presented. These recommendations constitute an advance towards the best treatment of multiple myeloma in Portugal.publishersversionpublishe

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Suporte para múltiplos sistemas operativos em microcontroladores com TrustZone-M

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e ComputadoresThe technological developments are helping to spread and strengthen embedded and IoT markets. As a consequence, more and more portable devices have become part of our daily routines, having access to private and personal information. Naturally, security has become one of the most important requirements of these systems. Other requirements include, for instance, portability and energy efficiency. These devices normally perform more than one function/action, and usually, for each of those functions, a full operating system is responsible for its data processing. So, to fulfil all the mentioned requirements, operating systems (Operating System (OS)es) are deployed on arm low-end platforms, with Armv8-M pushing towards the, de facto, microprocessors architecture. The processor features the TrustZone technology that divides the execution into two states; a secure (almighty), and a non-secure (with no privileges) state. The OSes have their execution supervised by a monitor software, the hypervisor, that also manages the memory used by each OS. Modern low-end hypervisors only allow executing two OSes, where the priorities and permissions to each can be configured, sometimes giving to some OS the same permissions as the software monitors. The security of the system can be compromised if this privileged OS is attacked and starts to corrupt the data from the other OS. For addressing this problem, this MSc thesis proposes a multi-OS hypervisor in which every OS is executed from the less privileged (non-secure) state while the inactive ones have their information secured. This security by separation (i.e. time and space partitioning) is assured by the TrustZone security extension that prevents the executing OS to access unauthorized third-party information. The hypervisor, with the TrustZone features, is responsible to perform the scheduler and change memory proprieties. The results presented a highly secure hypervisor, where the OSes are completely isolated from each other.Os desenvolvimentos tecnológicos estão na base da difusão e fortalecimento dos mercados de sistemas embebidos e de IoT. Como consequência, cada vez mais dispositivos móveis passaram a fazer parte das nossas rotinas diárias, tendo acesso a informações pessoais e privadas. Naturalmente, a segurança tornou-se num dos requisitos mais importantes destes sistemas. Outros requisitos incluem, por exemplo, a portabilidade e a eficiência energética. Estes dispositivos normalmente executam mais do que uma função/ação e, geralmente, para a cada uma dessas funções, está associado um sistema operativo (SO) responsável pelo processamento dos dados. Portanto, para atender a todos os requisitos mencionados, os SOs são implantados numa plataforma de baixa gama da ARM (com a inovadora arquitetura para micropocessadores, ARMv8-M). O processador possui a tecnologia TrustZone que divide a sua execução em dois estados; um estado seguro (privilégios completos) e um não seguro (sem privilégios). Os SOs têm normalmente a execução supervisionada por um software de monitorização (hypervisor) que também gere a memória de cada SO. Os hipervisores low-end modernos permitem apenas a execução de dois SOs, nos quais as suas prioridades e permissões podem ser configuradas, por vezes, concedendo a alguns SOs as mesmas permissões que o software monitor. A segurança do sistema pode ser comprometida se este SO privilegiado for atacado e corromper os dados de terceiros. Esta dissertação propõe um hipervisor multi-OS no qual todos os SOs são executados no estado menos privilegiado (não seguro) enquanto que os inativos têm a sua informação protegida. Esta segurança por separação (partição espacial e temporal) é garantida através da TrustZone, que impede o SO em execução de aceder a informações privadas de terceiros. O hipervisor, utilizando os recursos da TrustZone, é responsável por executar o escalonador e alterar as propriedades da memória. Os resultados apresentaram um hipervisor altamente seguro, onde os SOs estão totalmente isolados entre si

Relatório vacinação estratégias de comunicação e literacia em saúde eficazes para população jovem

Um conjunto de duas dezenas de profissionais portugueses de várias áreas da saúde refletiu em conjunto sobre as questões que levam os jovens a não se interessarem pela vacinação contra o COVID-19 e a forma mais eficaz de se ultrapassarem estas crenças negativas e barreiras à vacinação. As preocupações destes jovens sobre os efeitos seguros da vacinação, a proteção de familiares e amigos e o regresso às atividades sociais parecem ser fatores motivadores para a ação de vacinação e proteção. Neste sentido, e reunindo o conhecimento sobre as campanhas de marketing em saúde e os conteúdos comunicativos que podem influenciar positivamente esta mobilização para a vacinação, estes profissionais apresentam neste relatório um conjunto de dados científicos, estratégicos e operacionais que podem apontar alguns caminhos. Este grupo de trabalho avaliou o perfil dos jovens (dados demográficos e psicográficos), as crenças, as necessidades, a perceção do risco e as motivações que podem ser atendidas para que se criem, com a brevidade possível, através dos recursos públicos e das autoridades sanitárias, onde se inclui a Direção-Geral da Saúde (DGS), formas de melhor promover os objetivos inequívocos: vacinar a população jovem em Portugal com a brevidade possível.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Novos elementos para a história do Banco do Brasil (1808-1829): crónica de um fracasso anunciado

O primeiro Banco do Brasil, instituído em 1808, é habitualmente referido como uma das principais iniciativas da responsabilidade do governo de D. João VI quando a corte portuguesa se instalou no Rio de Janeiro. No entanto, continua em larga medida por fazer a história dessa instituição cuja fundação foi concebida como elemento essencial para o desenvolvimento da política económica e financeira durante o período de permanência da corte no Rio. O artigo procura explicar as motivações que estiveram na origem da criação do Banco do Brasil e as razões do fracasso no cumprimento da sua missão. O artigo revisita os trabalhos monográficos disponíveis sobre a história do Banco e revela documentação impressa pouco estudada e fontes primárias até agora inéditas que permitem fazer nova luz sobre a sua actividade

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved