A State-of-the-art Integrated Transportation Simulation Platform

Nowadays, universities and companies have a huge need for simulation and modelling methodologies. In the particular case of traffic and transportation, making physical modifications to the real traffic networks could be highly expensive, dependent on political decisions and could be highly disruptive to the environment. However, while studying a specific domain or problem, analysing a problem through simulation may not be trivial and may need several simulation tools, hence raising interoperability issues. To overcome these problems, we propose an agent-directed transportation simulation platform, through the cloud, by means of services. We intend to use the IEEE standard HLA (High Level Architecture) for simulators interoperability and agents for controlling and coordination. Our motivations are to allow multiresolution analysis of complex domains, to allow experts to collaborate on the analysis of a common problem and to allow co-simulation and synergy of different application domains. This paper will start by presenting some preliminary background concepts to help better understand the scope of this work. After that, the results of a literature review is shown. Finally, the general architecture of a transportation simulation platform is proposed

Densifying the sparse cloud SimSaaS: The need of a synergy among agent-directed simulation, SimSaaS and HLA

Modelling & Simulation (M&S) is broadly used in real scenarios where making physical modifications could be highly expensive. With the so-called Simulation Software-as-a-Service (SimSaaS), researchers could take advantage of the huge amount of resource that cloud computing provides. Even so, studying and analysing a problem through simulation may need several simulation tools, hence raising interoperability issues. Having this in mind, IEEE developed a standard for interoperability among simulators named High Level Architecture (HLA). Moreover, the multi-agent system approach has become recognised as a convenient approach for modelling and simulating complex systems. Despite all the recent works and acceptance of these technologies, there is still a great lack of work regarding synergies among them. This paper shows by means of a literature review this lack of work or, in other words, the sparse Cloud SimSaaS. The literature review and the resulting taxonomy are the main contributions of this paper, as they provide a research agenda illustrating future research opportunities and trends

Plant Metabolomics in a Changing World: Metabolite Responses to Abiotic Stress Combinations

Climate change constitutes a real threat to the global landscape. Current climate models predict an increased occurrence of coastal floods associated to sea level rise and long-term droughts associated to changes in the intra- and inter-year rainfall variability. Under natural environmental conditions, plants are routinely exposed to abiotic stresses, and must develop different strategies to cope with this multitude of climate change factors. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based plant metabolomics approaches are finding an increasing number of applications to investigate the molecular and biochemical mechanisms that underlie plant responses to changing environments. These studies provide a promising basis for facilitating our understanding of the plant’s flexibility to reconfigure central metabolic pathways (i.e., carbon, nitrogen and energy metabolism) as well as the degree by which plants tolerate and/or are susceptible to a climate change scenario. In this chapter, we will provide an update on the recent MS-based metabolomics strategies to study plant responses to drought, salt and heat stress as well as combinations thereof. We will describe how these stresses activate and coordinate several different signalling pathways, for example, through the synthesis of osmolytes

Growth influences biomechanical profile of talented swimmers during the summer break

This study aimed to analyse the effect of growth during a summer break on biomechanical profile of talented swimmers. Twenty-five young swimmers (12 boys and 13 girls) undertook several anthropometric and biomechanical tests at the end of the 2011-2012 season (pre-test) and 10 weeks later at the beginning of the 2012-2013 season (post-test). Height, arm span, hand surface area, and foot surface area were collected as anthropometric parameters, while stroke frequency, stroke length, stroke index, propelling efficiency, active drag, and active drag coefficient were considered as biomechanical variables. The mean swimming velocity during an all-out 25 m front crawl effort was used as the performance outcome. After the 10-week break, the swimmers were taller with an increased arm span, hand, and foot areas. Increases in stroke length, stroke index, propelling efficiency, and performance were also observed. Conversely, the stroke frequency, active drag, and drag coefficient remained unchanged. When controlling the effect of growth, no significant variation was determined on the biomechanical variables. The performance presented high associations with biomechanical and anthropometric parameters at pre-test and post-test, respectively. The results show that young talented swimmers still present biomechanical improvements after a 10-week break, which are mainly explained by their normal growth.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A hybrid energy-efficient routing protocol for wireless sensor networks

The usage and deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is rapidly increasing in many different monitoring and control applications. In the majority of these applications, energy is a key factor in sensor networks since the sensor nodes are battery powered and hence have limited resources of energy. In this context, choosing a proper energy-efficient routing technique can increase the network life time. In this paper, a new Hybrid Energy-Efficient (HEE) routing protocol is proposed. HEE uses Direct Transmission (DT) and Minimum Energy Transmission (MTE) which are two of the simplest methods in terms of computational complexity. However the design of routing techniques is highly dependent on the application and the performance may vary based on environmental parameters. The novel proposed method is applicable for different networks regardless of the size and distances between the nodes and also with different parameters such as number of nodes and message length. Simulation results show how HEE performs more efficiently in terms of energy consumption when comparing to DT and MTE.- (undefined

Contribuição para a avaliação do comportamento térmico de edifícios tradicionais portugueses

Os edifícios tradicionais portugueses apresentam especificidades técnicas locais. O clima e os materiais de construção disponíveis localmente são fatores condicionantes dessas especificidades. Por exemplo, os edifícios tradicionais algarvios, as açoteias, têm a cobertura em terraço e são pintados de branco. Por sua vez, os edifícios de xisto e de tabique do Alto Douro têm a cobertura inclinada com beirais e vãos de pequenas dimensões. Os edifícios de granito e de tabique das regiões de Trás-os-Montes e do Minho também têm coberturas inclinadas com beirais. Contudo, com o fenómeno da globalização, tem havido uma tendência de uniformização dos padrões construtivos e as especificidades locais parecem ter vindo a ser negligenciadas. O aparecimento de problemas ambientais resultantes, em grande parte, da emissão de gases de efeito de estufa para a atmosfera provenientes do aumento do consumo energético nos edifícios implica a adoção de medidas conducentes à redução desse consumo. Pensa-se que o conhecimento das características técnicas dos edifícios tradicionais de cada região poderá contribuir para minimizar este consumo e tornar assim os edifícios novos ou os edifícios a reabilitar mais eficientes energeticamente e, implicitamente, mais sustentáveis. Neste sentido, foi desenvolvida uma metodologia experimental, para avaliar o coeficiente de transmissão térmica de elementos construtivos de edifícios, passível de ser aplicada “in situ” e em laboratório. Esta metodologia permite uma monitorização contínua desse desempenho térmico durante vários dias e em condições termo higrométricas reais. Nesta comunicação serão apresentados alguns dos resultados obtidos através da aplicação desta metodologia a elementos construtivos e materiais existentes nos edifícios tradicionais da região de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro

MUVTIME: a Multivariate time series visualizer for behavioral science

As behavioral science becomes progressively more data driven, the need is increasing for appropriate tools for visual exploration and analysis of large datasets, often formed by multivariate time series. This paper describes MUVTIME, a multimodal time series visualization tool, developed in Matlab that allows a user to load a time series collection (a multivariate time series dataset) and an associated video. The user can plot several time series on MUVTIME and use one of them to do brushing on the displayed data, i.e. select a time range dynamically and have it updated on the display. The tool also features a categorical visualization of two binary time series that works as a high-level descriptor of the coordination between two interacting partners. The paper reports the successful use of MUVTIME under the scope of project TURNTAKE, which was intended to contribute to the improvement of human-robot interaction systems by studying turn- taking dynamics (role interchange) in parent-child dyads during joint action.Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship PIIF-GA-2011- 301155; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) project PTDC/PSI- PCO/121494/2010; AFP was also partially funded by the FCT project (IF/00217/2013)This research was supported by: Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship PIIF-GA-2011301155; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) Strategic program FCT UID/EEA/00066/2013; FCT project PTDC/PSIPCO/121494/2010. AFP was also partially funded by the FCT project (IF/00217/2013). REFERENCE

Edifícios de xisto no concelho de Peso da Régua

A pedra de xisto é um material natural e local comummente utilizado nas construções tradicionais do Concelho de Peso da Régua. Esta zona do Nordeste Português está inserida na região do Douro que é classificada como Património Mundial pela UNESCO. Os muros de divisão de terrenos, de suporte de terras e os edifícios de construção tradicional são os tipos de construção em que a pedra de xisto é o material dominante. Estas construções são parte integrante da paisagem e do património vernacular local, e por isso devem ser valorizados e preservados. Através deste trabalho de investigação foi possível realizar um levantamento dos edifícios de xisto existentes neste concelho, e reunir um conjunto de informações técnicas e construtivas que os caracterizam. Este artigo pretende divulgar informação técnica relativa a detalhes construtivos deste tipo de construção tradicional, focada principalmente nas suas especificidades estruturais. No contexto estrutural, as paredes de alvenaria de pedra de xisto são os elementos estruturais verticais principais. As dimensões e constituição das paredes, dos vãos de janela e de porta, dos cunhais e das padieiras são alguns dos aspectos técnicos e construtivos que merecem especial destaque, tendo em conta que podem influenciar de forma decisiva o comportamento estrutural deste elemento construtivo. Deste modo, pretende-se contribuir para o conhecimento deste tipo de construção, e disponibilizar informação base que possa suportar estudos futuros de modelação numérica e/ou ensaios experimentais do comportamento de paredes em alvenaria de pedra de xisto

Characterization of the primary matabolome of Brachystegia boehmii and Colophospermum mopane under different fire regimes in Miombo and Mopane African woodlands

Original ResearchMiombo and Mopane are ecological and economic important woodlands from Africa, highly affected by a combination of climate change factors, and anthropogenic fires. Although most species of these ecosystems are fire tolerant, the mechanisms that lead to adaptive responses (metabolic reconfiguration) are unknown. In this context, the aim of this study was to characterize the primary metabolite composition of typical legume trees from these ecosystems, namely, Brachystegia boehmii (Miombo) and Colophospermum mopane (Mopane) subjected to different fire regimes. Fresh leaves from each species were collected in management units and landscapes across varied fire frequencies in the Niassa National Reserve (NNR) and Limpopo National Park (LNP) in Mozambique. Primary metabolites were extracted and analyzed with a well-established gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry metabolomics platform (GC-TOF-MS). In B. boehmii, 39 primary metabolites were identified from which seven amino acids, two organic acids and two sugars increased significantly, whereas in C. mopane, 41 primary metabolites were identified from which eight amino acids, one sugar and two organic acids significantly increased with increasing fire frequency. The observed changes in the pool of metabolites of C. mopane might be related to high glycolytic and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) rate, which provided increased levels of amino acids and energy yield. In B. boehmii, the high levels of amino acids might be due to inhibition of protein biosynthesis. The osmoprotectant and reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging properties of accumulated metabolites in parallel with a high-energy yield might support plants survival under fire stressinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio