Gender Matters! Analyzing Global Cultural Gender Preferences for Venues Using Social Sensing

Gender differences is a phenomenon around the world actively researched by social scientists. Traditionally, the data used to support such studies is manually obtained, often through surveys with volunteers. However, due to their inherent high costs because of manual steps, such traditional methods do not quickly scale to large-size studies. We here investigate a particular aspect of gender differences: preferences for venues. To that end we explore the use of check-in data collected from Foursquare to estimate cultural gender preferences for venues in the physical world. For that, we first demonstrate that by analyzing the check-in data in various regions of the world we can find significant differences in preferences for specific venues between gender groups. Some of these significant differences reflect well-known cultural patterns. Moreover, we also gathered evidence that our methodology offers useful information about gender preference for venues in a given region in the real world. This suggests that gender and venue preferences observed may not be independent. Our results suggests that our proposed methodology could be a promising tool to support studies on gender preferences for venues at different spatial granularities around the world, being faster and cheaper than traditional methods, besides quickly capturing changes in the real world

You are What you Eat (and Drink): Identifying Cultural Boundaries by Analyzing Food & Drink Habits in Foursquare

Food and drink are two of the most basic needs of human beings. However, as society evolved, food and drink became also a strong cultural aspect, being able to describe strong differences among people. Traditional methods used to analyze cross-cultural differences are mainly based on surveys and, for this reason, they are very difficult to represent a significant statistical sample at a global scale. In this paper, we propose a new methodology to identify cultural boundaries and similarities across populations at different scales based on the analysis of Foursquare check-ins. This approach might be useful not only for economic purposes, but also to support existing and novel marketing and social applications. Our methodology consists of the following steps. First, we map food and drink related check-ins extracted from Foursquare into users' cultural preferences. Second, we identify particular individual preferences, such as the taste for a certain type of food or drink, e.g., pizza or sake, as well as temporal habits, such as the time and day of the week when an individual goes to a restaurant or a bar. Third, we show how to analyze this information to assess the cultural distance between two countries, cities or even areas of a city. Fourth, we apply a simple clustering technique, using this cultural distance measure, to draw cultural boundaries across countries, cities and regions.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Proceedings of 8th AAAI Intl. Conf. on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2014

Performance Evaluation of the Multi-winding Redundancy Approach in MTB DC-DC Converters

The Multi-winding transformer-based (MTB) DCDC converter topologies have been investigated to be applied as the key component in different application fields, in particular those which are safety-critical ones, such as aerospace, energy distribution, and data-centers (data-processing). Thus, this paper presents a fault-tolerance concept associated with the possibility of operating the MTB topologies even under fault conditions, by only disconnecting the faulty cell and keeping the healthy ones operating continuously. In this approach, named Multi-winding redundancy (MWRed), the MTB converter is equipped with additional isolation switches which enhance its fault-tolerant capability. In contrast to competing approaches, MWRed utilizes the magnetic coupling of the MWT to reduce the use of several redundancies, which makes the strategy more appealing in critical applications. Further, in order to evaluate the impact of the isolation switches on MTB converters, the MWRed is assessed in terms of efficiency and reliability, so that the superior advantages to conventional approaches are presented and demonstrated. Finally, the investigated MWRed is evaluated experimentally to validate its effectiveness in different scenarios

MODELLING USER NEEDS: STUDENTS AS ENTERPRISE ANALYSTS

We illustrate a case study, where students designed enterprise architectures, that were not only welcome but successfully implemented. The success key was threefold. First the analysis framework, that integrates all the aspects of the systems that are relevant to users, namely user interface, rules, and information. Second, the analysis approach, that guides, trough confirmatory sessions, to elicit real requirements from users. Third, the model-to-model transformation, that assures consistency from the highest aggregate abstraction down to an executable model

A SME-oriented extension of Agile development process

This work intends to contribute on Agile i.e. an agile approach to the software development cycle. Agile is already popular in many organizations. Our work intends to define an Agile methodology for small businesses based on a customer-driven approach. Our objectives are (a) an overview of Agile meth-odology and of its state of the art, (b) a discussion of the possible issues in Ag-ile practices that may affect small businesses, (c) an extension of the Agile methodology by Goal Oriented Analysis, (d) a validation on a real case study

Population structure of the broad-snouted caiman (Caiman latirostris) in natural and man-made water bodies associated with a silvicultural landscape

The broad-snouted caiman (Caiman latirostris) is a South American crocodilian with a wide geographical distribution. Water bodies originally occupied by the species have suffered extreme anthropogenic pressure; however, the broad-snouted caiman has a high adaptive capacity to colonize man-made habitats such as decanting pounds and artificial reservoirs for agriculture or livestock. In this context, the present study aimed at identifying the population structure of the broad-snouted caiman in a silvicultural landscape in southeastern Brazil. Fifty-two caimans of various classes were captured with baited traps and steel cable snares at night. The estimated population size was 51 individuals. The population density was estimated to be 2.6 individuals/ha with a linear density of 11.3 individuals/km. The intermediate values of linear density estimates herein compared with other areas, suggesting that silvicultural landscapes can be relevant for broadsnouted caiman conservation. Therefore, the role of silvicultural landscapes in crocodilian conservation should be taken into consideration for environmental certification processes related to forestry in the Neotropics.Fil: Marques, Thiago Simon. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Bassetti, Luís Antonio Bochetti. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Lara, Neliton Ricardo Freitas. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Millan, Cristian Honora. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Piña, Carlos Ignacio. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Verdade, Luciano Martins. Universidade de Sao Paulo; Brasi

βCaMKII regulates bidirectional long-term plasticity in cerebellar Purkinje cells by a CaMKII/PP2B switch mechanism

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise statedPeer reviewe

Mutirão agroflorestal, 29-Novembro, 2013: assentamento Manoel Neto, Taubaté, SP, Brasil.

O objetivo do mutirão agroflorestal é preparar agricultores familiares, profissionais de assistência técnica, ensino, pesquisa e extensão rural para instalar e manejar sistemas agroflorestais (SAFs) adotando a metodologia participativa de mutirão agroflorestal. A Oficina de implantação do SAF em mutirão agroflorestal, reuniu um público variado e resultou na instalação de uma unidade de desenvolvimento tecnológico agroflorestal participativa