Multiscale model for the effects of adaptive immunity suppression on the viral therapy of cancer

Oncolytic virotherapy - the use of viruses that specifically kill tumor cells - is an innovative and highly promising route for treating cancer. However, its therapeutic outcomes are mainly impaired by the host immune response to the viral infection. In the present work, we propose a multiscale mathematical model to study how the immune response interferes with the viral oncolytic activity. The model assumes that cytotoxic T cells can induce apoptosis in infected cancer cells and that free viruses can be inactivated by neutralizing antibodies or cleared at a constant rate by the innate immune response. Our simulations suggest that reprogramming the immune microenvironment in tumors could substantially enhance the oncolytic virotherapy in immune-competent hosts. Viable routes to such reprogramming are either in situ virus-mediated impairing of CD$8^+$ T cells motility or blockade of B and T lymphocytes recruitment. Our theoretical results can shed light on the design of viral vectors or new protocols with neat potential impacts on the clinical practice.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Features Selection Algorithms for Classification of Voice Signals

In data mining problems, the high dimensionality of the input features can affect the performance of the process. In this way, the features selection methods appear as a solution to the problems encountered when analyzing databases with large dimensions. This article presents the implementation of the Pearson's linear correlation, ReliefF, Welch's t-test and multilinear regression based algorithms with forwards selection and backward elimination direction for the selection of acoustic features for the task of voice pathologies identification. The best set of selected features improved the accuracy and F1-score from 83% to 92% (9 points of percentage), using the ReliefF algorithm.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UIDB/05757/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Challenges in communication community philanthropy and philanthropy for social justice

This publication is a collection of four articles developd with the collaboration of the communicators involved in the organizations associated to the Brazilian Philanthropy Network for Social Justice (Network). These pieces are the result of collective interviews held in mid-2020 with the aim of mapping and reviewing the communication challenges faced by community philanthropy and philanthropy for social justice, as well as highlighting the communication strategies developed by community and issue-oriented funds comprising the Network

As relações bilaterais entre Paraguai e Brasil na ditadura Stroessner: revisionismo nacionalista e discurso desenvolvimentista

Anais do IV Encontro de Iniciação Científica da Unila - “UNILA 5 anos: Integração em Ciência, Tecnologia e Cultura na Tríplice Fronteira” - 05 e 06 de novembro de 2015 – Sessão HistóriaA Ditadura Stroessner (1954-1989) dispôs de um sistema de mecanismos de controle que foram essenciais para sua longevidade, dentre estes mecanismos estavam as estratégias discursivas adotadas para legitimar o regime, entre essas estratégias destacamos o uso de um discurso nacionalista apoiado no revisionismo histórico, movimento ocorrido em diferentes países da América Latina, e que no Paraguai procurou reinterpretar a história de forma a construir um sentimento nacionalista, também utilizado pelo regime stronista para vincular Alfredo Stroessner aos heróis nacionais, resignificados a partir desse movimento de revisão do passado histórico paraguaio. O regime também se utilizava da memória da Guerra da Tríplice Aliança (1864-1870) para instigar esse sentimento nacionalista, ao mesmo tempo em que procurava justificar as suas relações e alianças com o Brasil, antigo inimigo de guerra. Este trabalho procurou analisar as relações bilaterais entre Paraguai e Brasil e suas justificativas, os usos do revisionismo histórico pelo regime stronista e as contradições entre as duas conjunturas. Além disso, através das reflexões que apresentamos, procuramos amenizar as lacunas e silêncios da história paraguaia, pois com exceção da Guerra do Chaco (1932-1935), a história do Paraguai após a Guerra da Tríplice Aliança carece de estudos historiográficos dentro e fora do Paraguai, assim como a história de suas relações internacionais. Na mesma realidade encontram-se os estudos sobre a Ditadura Stroessner, episódio marcante da história paraguaia, mas que é pouco explorada, principalmente pela historiografia paraguaia. Mais assolador é a extrema carência dos estudos sobre o regime stronista e as relações com o Brasil, posicionado como um dos principais apoiadores externos deste longo regime ditatorial paraguaio.Bolsista Fundação Araucári

Métodos de seleção de parâmetros para o diagnóstico de patologias da laringe

Mestrado de dupla diplomação com a UTFPR - Universidade Tecnológica Federal do ParanáEsta dissertação propõe soluções para a identificação de patologias da voz através do processamento do sinal de fala. Foram utilizados na classificação de patologias como Laringite Crónica, Disfonia e Paralisia das Cordas Vocais as redes neuronais, Multilayer Perceptron e Long-Short-Term-Memory. Os parâmetros acústicos empregados foram jitter relativo, jitter absoluto, shimmer relativo, shimmer absoluto, autocorrelação, Harmonic to Noise Ratio, Noise to Harmonic Ratio e Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients. Estes parêmetros são extraídos da base de dados Saarbrücken Voice Database, a partir de arquivos de áudio que contém as vogais sustentadas /a/, /i/ e /u/ nos tons baixo, normal e alto. Também empregou e testou técnicas de normalização de dados, identificação de outliers e seleção de parâmetros. Tais aplicações tem a finalidade de otimizar o modelo de reconhecimento, torná-lo mais eficiente e consequentemente melhorar a acurácia/exatidão do diagnóstico. Como pré-processamento utilizou-se as técnicas de normalização Z-score, Logarítmica e Raiz Quadrada para permitir uma melhor identificação dos outliers presente nos dados, por meio da aplicação do método do Box Plot e do Desvio Padrão. Após os experimentos, tanto o método do Desvio Padrão quanto o do Box Plot com normalização do Z-score mostraram-se muito úteis para o pré-processamento do conjunto de dados para o reconhecimento de patologias de voz. A acurácia foi melhorada entre 3 a 13 pontos em percentagem. Posteriormente, foram utilizadas as técnicas de Seleção de Parâmetros que ordenam os atributos segundo uma métrica de importância. Deste modo, os parâmetros relevantes são selecionados de acordo com o critério estabelecido pelos testes: Correlação, ReliefF, Test t de Welch, Regressão Multilinear. Ao comparar todos os algoritmos desenvolvidos, pode-se destacar que o algoritmo baseado no ReliefF teve o melhor desempenho. Com relação a acurácia teve um aumento de 9 pontos percentuais e na medida F de 8 pontos percentuais.This thesis proposes solutions for the identification of voice pathologies through speech signal processing. Pathologies such as Chronic Laryngitis, Dysphonia and Vocal Cord Paralysis were used to classify neuronal networks, Multilayer Perceptron and Long-Short-Term-Memory. The acoustic parameters employed are relative jitter, absolute jitter, relative shimmer, absolute shimmer, autocorrelation, Harmonic to Noise Ratio, Noise to Harmonic Ratio and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients. These parameters are extracted from the Saarbrücken Voice Database from audio files containing the sustained vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ in low, normal and high tones. Data normalization, outlier identification and attribute selection techniques were used. Such applications have the purpose of optimizing the recognition model, making it more efficient and consequently improving the accuracy of the diagnosis. As preprocessing, Z-score, Logarithmic and Square Root normalization techniques were used to allow a better identification of outliers present in the data, by applying the Box Plot and Standard Deviation method. After the experiments, both the Standard Deviation method and the Z-score normalized Box Plot method proved to be very useful for data set preprocessing for speech pathology recognition. Accuracy was improved by 3 to 13 percentage points. Subsequently, we used the Parameter Selection techniques that order the attributes according to a metric of importance. Thus, the relevant parameters were selected according to the criteria established by the tests: Correlation, ReliefF, Welch T test, Multilinear Regression. When comparing all the developed algorithms, it can be highlighted that the ReliefF based algorithm had the best performance. Regarding accuracy, there was an increase of 9 percentage points and measure F of 8 percentage points

The role of mindfulness on the relationship between daily micro-events and daily gratitude: A within-person analysis

This study is based on the affective events theory and aimed to investigate the situational predictors for mindfulness-related differences in daily affect and gratitude. We tested a mediated moderation model in which daily micro-events (daily hassles and uplifts) were related to affect and gratitude at the within-person level. We also tested a cross-level interaction of mindfulness on the relationship between daily micro-events and gratitude and between daily micro-events and affect. A total of 101 participants participated in a 10-day diary study (n = 1010). Multilevel modeling showed that, at the person-level of analysis, daily micro-events were significantly related to daily affect, and in turn, to daily gratitude. At the within-level of analysis mindfulness moderated the link between daily micro-events and daily gratitude and between daily micro-events and daily affect, such that it become stronger for individuals who scored higher on mindfulness. These findings make relevant theoretical contributions to understanding the power of mindfulness for daily affective dynamics. These results also expand knowledge on within-person processes that explain daily affect and gratitude, in addition to more traditional between-person factors. In sum, the present research demonstrates that being mindful may improve, not only positive affect, but also gratitude

Ecosistema de emprendimiento e innovación social de la zona metropolitana de guadalajara (ZMG): Ecossistema de empreendedorismo e inovação social da Área Metropolitana de Guadalajara (ZMG)

El trabajo tiene como objetivo identificar y describir en un ecosistema de emprendimiento e innovación los principales actores, los esfuerzos de colaboración, las vinculaciones entre ellos y los proyectos de innovación social que se han generado a partir de esas relaciones y esfuerzos, para dar cuenta de las iniciativas transformadoras que a partir de una infraestructura de un ecosistema pueden favorecer el desarrollo social de una región. Para ello, se hizo una aproximación a partir de entrevistas y observaciones a diferentes actores del ecosistema de emprendimiento e innovación de la zona metropolitana de Guadalajara (ZMG) para dar cuenta de las dinámicas sociales (Camarinha, 2008; Kakko, 2014) que se generan y observar el papel de las personas, para el entendimiento de cómo emergen nuevos patrones de innovación. A partir de esta aproximación se encontró que la ZMG se encuentra inmersa en un ambiente donde existen instituciones de gobierno, organismos públicos, privados, universidad, centros de investigación e inversionistas y a la vez está rodeada de gente que comparte sus experiencias en las comunidades. Sin embargo, las conexiones existentes entre ellos son débiles para la Innovación Social de base Tecnológica (IST), en el sentido de que se consolidan pocos proyectos de IST. La realización del estudio permite concluir que a partir de la identificación de las organizaciones claves, los actores y las condiciones críticas del ambiente del ecosistema de emprendimiento e innovación de la ZMG, se constituye un incipiente ecosistema de innovación social. No obstante, el mapeo de los recursos del ecosistema lleva a la construcción de un marco que puede ayudar al desarrollo de una estrategia de emprendimiento e innovación social que desarrolle al ecosistema, al generar una infraestructura que vincule a los actores y sean aprovechadas las capacidades de cada uno de ellos

Antimicrobial activity, phenolic profile and role in the inflammation of propolis

Nowadays a great amount of information regarding chemical and biological aspects of bee products is available in the literature, but few data on its therapeutic uses are found. The aim of this study was to evaluate the phenolic profile, the in vitro antimicrobial activity and effect in the hyaluronidase enzyme (widely related with the inflammation process) of propolis harvested in Portugal. The efficacy of three extracts (hydro-alcoholic, methanolic and aqueous) was also compared. It was chosen the hydroalcoholic extract, because this was the most effective for extracting phenolic compounds. The antimicrobial activity was accessed in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and yeasts, isolated from different biological fluids and the results were then compared with the obtained for reference microorganisms. The propolis from Bragança was the one that possessed the highest polyphenols’ content. The sample from Beja showed the less significant inhibition of the hyaluronidase enzyme. Concerning the antimicrobial activity, Candida albicans was the most resistant and Staphylococcus aureus the most sensitive. The reference microorganisms were more sensitive than the ones isolated from biological fluids