Makefile : parallel dependency specification language

Some processes are not easy to be programmed from scratch for parallel machines (clusters), but can be easily split on simple steps. Makefile::Parallel is a tool which lets users to specify how processes depend on each other. The language syntax resembles the well known Makefile makefiles format, but instead of specifying files or targets dependencies, Makefile::Parallel specifies processes (or jobs) dependencies. The scheduler submits jobs to the cluster scheduler (in our case, Rocks PBS) waiting them to end. When each process finishes, dependencies are calculated and direct dependent jobs are submitted. Makefile::Parallel language includes features to specify parametric rules, used to split and join processes dependencies. Some tasks can be split into n smaller jobs working on different portions of files. At the end, another process can be used to join the results.Partially supported by grant POSI/PLP/43931/2001 from Fundacao para a Cienciae Tecnologia (Portugal), co-financed by POSI

WIKI::SCORE: a collaborative environment for music transcription and publishing

Music sources are most commonly shared in music scores scanned or printed on paper sheets. These artifacts are rich in information, but since they are images it is hard to re-use and share their content in todays’ digital world. There are modern languages that can be used to transcribe music sheets, this is still a time consuming task, because of the complexity involved in the process and the typical huge size of the original documents. WIKI::SCORE is a collaborative environment where several people work together to transcribe music sheets to a shared medium, using the notation. This eases the process of transcribing huge documents, and stores the document in a well known notation, that can be used later on to publish the whole content in several formats, such as a PDF document, images or audio files for example.(undefined

Prescribing patterns of medication for respiratory diseases - cluster analysis of the Portuguese electronic prescription database

We aimed to describe, for the first time, the prescribing patterns among patients on persistent respiratory treatment, from the Portuguese electronic prescription and dispensing database. This was a one-year retrospective population-based analysis of prescriptions (n = 39810) for medication for respiratory disease and exacerbations. Cluster analysis was applied based on medication and prescribers' specialty. Prescribing patterns were grouped and labelled as: possible medication for asthma and allergic rhinitis (General Practitioners-GPs and allergists to younger patients); COPD (GPs and pulmonologists to older patients); asthma or Asthma-COPD Overlap (GPs and pulmonologists); exacerbation, infection and relievers. This analysis was an important first step to understand the Portuguese reality on the treatment of respiratory diseases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Seismic cross-hole tomography in modeling ISC'2 experimental site

The extensive in-situ investigation and characterization of ISC2 experimental site, located on the campus of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), comprised a geological reconnaissance of the area as well as the application of several geophysical and geotechnical surface and borehole methods, namely seismic P- and S-wave seismic refraction, conventional and tomographic cross-hole, high resolution SH-wave shallow reflection, geoelectrical resistivity imaging, penetration tests and pressure-dilatometer tests. In parallel, a laboratory testing program was carried out on undisturbed samples, including triaxial tests with bender elements and resonant column tests. Broadly, the site is geologically formed by an upper layer of soil with varying thickness, overlaying rather weathered granite (saprolite) contacting an older gneissic migmatite having dominant sub-vertical foliation, with the piezometric water level at a depth about 10m during the surveying period. Direct and indirect results from some of the referred geophysical surveys, namely those obtained from seismic refraction and reflection, conventional cross-hole, down-hole, geoelectrical imaging and ground penetrating radar, as well as from the geotechnical in-situ and laboratory tests, have been previously presented, compared and discussed. Following a brief summary of some relevant contextualizing issues, the present report presents and discusses results obtained from the conducted seismic cross-hole tomography survey as well as their integration in the previously obtained tentative ISC2 experimental soil profile interpretation model

Flexible time-triggered protocol for CAN: new scheduling and dispatching solutions

One of the possibilities to build robust communication systems with respect to their temporal behaviour is to use autonomous control based on the time-triggered paradigm. The FTT-CAN - flexible time-triggered protocol, relies on centralised scheduling but makes use of the CAN native distributed arbitration to reduce communication overhead. There, a planning scheduler is used within a master node to reduce the scheduling run-time overhead. On-line changes to the communication requirements can then be made under guaranteed timeliness. In addition FTT-CAN also allows an efficient combination of both time-triggered and event- triggered traffic with temporal isolation. In this paper, recent evolutions of the initial protocol definition concerning transmission of synchronous and asynchronous messages are presented. These consist in a time division of the elementary transmission window which optimises the available bandwidth for asynchronous messages, keeping the timeliness of synchronous messages without jeopardising their transmission jitter. A novel solution for the planning scheduler is also presented. It consists in an FPGA-based coprocessor which implements the planning scheduler technique without imposing overhead to the arbiter CPU. With it, it is possible to reduce strongly the plan duration thus allowing on-line admission demanded by system elements and, also, to extend the protocol application to high-speed networks

Automated apparatus for gas solubility measurements

An automated apparatus based on the Ben-Naim-Baer and Tominaga et al. designs [A. Ben-Naim, S. Baer, Trans. Faraday Soc. 59 (1963) 2735-2738; T. Tominaga, R. Battino, H.K. Gorowara, R.D. Dixon, J. Chem. Eng. Data 31 (1986) 175-180] has been implemented for measurements of gas solubilities in liquids under atmospheric pressure and room temperatures. The uncertainty in the measurement of gas solubilities was estimated from the uncertainties in the directly measured quantities using the error propagation law. The accuracy of the experimental method was checked by measuring the solubility of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in water in the range T = (290 to 303) K, being found to be 0.6%. A precision of the same order of magnitude was achieved.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WHM-4NYSXR7-2/1/adfe1ea651a5aee6dce7d49f424899b

Recycling of leather waste containing chromium - A review

Chromium tanned leather is the preferred option for tanning leather used in footwear due to the high performance and unique properties it confers to the final product. However, huge amounts of chromium tanned leather wastes are generated and mostly discarded to landfills by the leather industries annually worldwide. This represents wasting of the contained resources and it is a cause of environmental concern, mainly due to the presence of chromium in those wastes. Thus, more sustainable alternatives than landfilling for chromium-tanned leather scrap were the objective of several works. Direct use for reduction of Cr(VI) in the preparation of chromium tanning agent and in cleaning operations to remove oils, hydrocarbons, solvents, metals and other chemicals from grounds and aqueous media were found as feasible options. As leather wastes are intrinsic fibrous it opens a potential window for using them as raw materials to prepare leather foils and boards, and as additives for plastic or rubber composites. Wet treatments are also possible options for chromium tanned leather scrap. Hydrolysis of shavings with alkalis such as CaO, NaOH and MgO at moderate temperatures are able to recycle amino acids and peptides usable for animal feeding, fertilizers, packaging for agriculture, and for producing reagents to close the tanning loop, among others. Acid treatments of chromium-tanned shavings have also been studied and lead to the removal and dissolution of chromium (III) from the complex collagen-chromium. Biotechnological techniques requiring less energy and involving enzymes in one or more sequential extraction steps, may recover gelatine, collagen hydrolysate and chromium cake from chromium tanned leather shavings. Not surprisingly, heating value of leather is similar to wood which makes its use as a heating source a logical option. Several research groups and companies have been working to develop adequate technologies for this safe application, including recovery of chromium contained in the ashes

Prevalence of asthma and its association with rhinitis in the elderly

BACKGROUND: Asthma and rhinitis are frequent respiratory diseases in children and adults. Despite the increase in the aging population, there are few epidemiologic data on both diseases in the elderly. So far, no population-based study has analyzed the association between asthma and rhinitis symptoms and severity in this age group. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma in the population aged ≥65 years in mainland Portugal and to evaluate its association with the presence and classification of rhinitis according to ARIA recommendations, in this age group. METHODS: A cross-sectional, nationwide, population-based survey of individuals aged ≥65 years, living in mainland Portugal was performed. RESULTS: Data were obtained from 3678 respondents. The prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma was 10.9% (95% confidence interval (95%CI) 9.9-11.9). The frequency of asthma diagnosis increased with the number of nasal symptoms (p < 0.001). A strong association between asthma and rhinitis was found (odds ratio (OR) 13.86 (95%CI 10.66-18.02)). The strength of this association increased with the persistence and severity of rhinitis, being particularly high in elderly subjects with moderate-severe persistent rhinitis (OR 39.9 (95%CI 27.5-58.0)). CONCLUSIONS: Asthma is common in the elderly and strongly associated with rhinitis. The OR for asthma is especially high in persistent and severe ARIA classification rhinitis types. This study strengthens the need for an integrated assessment of asthma together with rhinitis in the elderl

Prevalence of asthma and its association with rhinitis in the elderly

Funding Information: Funding: Methodological support and field work was supplied by KeyPoint, Scientific Consultants. This study was supported by a Schering-Plough Pharma grant attributed to Sociedade Portuguesa de Alergologia e Imunologia Clinica (SPAIC).Background Asthma and rhinitis are frequent respiratory diseases in children and adults. Despite the increase in the aging population, there are few epidemiologic data on both diseases in the elderly. So far, no population-based study has analyzed the association between asthma and rhinitis symptoms and severity in this age group. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma in the population aged ≥65 years in mainland Portugal and to evaluate its association with the presence and classification of rhinitis according to ARIA recommendations, in this age group. Methods A cross-sectional, nationwide, population-based survey of individuals aged ≥65 years, living in mainland Portugal was performed. Results Data were obtained from 3678 respondents. The prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma was 10.9% (95% confidence interval (95%CI) 9.9-11.9). The frequency of asthma diagnosis increased with the number of nasal symptoms (p < 0.001). A strong association between asthma and rhinitis was found (odds ratio (OR) 13.86 (95%CI 10.66-18.02)). The strength of this association increased with the persistence and severity of rhinitis, being particularly high in elderly subjects with moderate-severe persistent rhinitis (OR 39.9 (95%CI 27.5-58.0)). Conclusions Asthma is common in the elderly and strongly associated with rhinitis. The OR for asthma is especially high in persistent and severe ARIA classification rhinitis types. This study strengthens the need for an integrated assessment of asthma together with rhinitis in the elderly.publishersversionpublishe