La cadena de valor de los productos forestales y los costes de su remodelación: impacto multirregional de la reducción de las industrias de pulpa y papel en Portugal

Las evaluaciones macroeconómicas de la industria forestal tienden a subestimar su impacto en las economías regionales. Este trabajo propone un concepto más amplio – la "cadena de valor de los productos forestales"- que incluye la contribución de las actividades que dependen (directa e indirectamente) de la silvicultura y los productos forestales. Con una metodología basada en un modelo de input-output multirregional y centrado en la economía portuguesa. Los resultados elucidan el papel del eucalipto en las producciones de pulpa, papel y cartón y artículos de papel y cartón. Finalmente, se evalúan las consecuencias macroeconómicas proyectadas para una reducción de estas producciones.Forestry industry macroeconomic assessments typically concentrate on the production, harvesting, and earliest processing of wood products, underestimating the full range of forests impacts in regional economies. This work proposes a broader concept – “forestry products value chain”– that ponders the contribution of the downstream activities relying (directly and indirectly) on Silviculture and Forestry products. The paper adopts a methodology based on a Multi-Regional Input-Output framework. We apply this approach to the Portuguese economy. Results clarify the role of eucalyptus in “Pulp”, “Paper and Cardboard” and “Paper and Cardboard Articles”. Finally, the projected wider macroeconomic consequences from a reduction of these productions is evaluated

Using a new high-throughput video-tracking platform to assess behavioural changes in Daphnia magna exposed to neuro-active drugs

© 2019. ElsevierOne of the major challenges that faces today regulatory risk assessment is to speed up the way of assessing threshold sublethal detrimental effects of existing and new chemical products. Recently advances in imaging allows to monitor in real time the behaviour of individuals under a given stress. Light is a common stress for many different organisms. Fish larvae and many invertebrate species respond to light altering their behaviour. The water flea Daphnia magna as many other zooplanktonic species has a marked diel vertical phototactic swimming behaviour against light due to fish predation. The aim of this study was to develop a high throughput image analysis to study changes in the vertical swimming behaviour to light of D. magna first reproductive adult females exposed to 0.1 and 1 µg/L of four psychiatric drugs: diazepam, fluoxetine, propranolol and carbamazepine during their entire life. Experiments were conducted using a new custom designed vertical oriented four 50 mL chamber device controlled by the Noldus software (Netherlands). Changes in speed, preferred area (bottom vs upper areas) and animal aggregation were analysed using groups of animals under consecutive periods of dark and apical light stimulus of different intensities. Obtained results indicated that light intensity increased the speed but low light intensities allowed to better discriminate individual responses to the studied drugs. The four tested drugs decreased the response of exposed organisms to light: individuals move less, were closer to the bottom and at low light intensities were closer each other. At high light intensities, however, exposed individuals were less aggregated. Propranolol, carbamazepine and fluoxetine were the compounds effecting most the behaviour. Our results indicated that psychiatric drugs at environmental relevant concentrations alter the vertical phototactic behaviour of D. magna individuals and that it is possible to develop appropriate high-throughput image analysis devices to measure those responses.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Behavioral Analysis for Virtualized Network Functions : A SOM-based Approach

In this paper, we tackle the problem of detecting anomalous behaviors in a virtualized infrastructure for network function virtualization, proposing to use self-organizing maps for analyzing historical data available through a data center. We propose a joint analysis of system-level metrics, mostly related to resource consumption patterns of the hosted virtual machines, as available through the virtualized infrastructure monitoring system, and the application-level metrics published by individual virtualized network functions through their own monitoring subsystems. Experimental results, obtained by processing real data from one of the NFV data centers of the Vodafone network operator, show that our technique is able to identify specific points in space and time of the recent evolution of the monitored infrastructure that are worth to be investigated by a human operator in order to keep the system running under expected conditions

SOM-based behavioral analysis for virtualized network functions

In this paper, we propose a mechanism based on Self-Organizing Maps for analyzing the resource consumption behaviors and detecting possible anomalies in data centers for Network Function Virtualization (NFV). Our approach is based on a joint analysis of two historical data sets available through two separate monitoring systems: system-level metrics for the physical and virtual machines obtained from the monitoring infrastructure, and application-level metrics available from the individual virtualized network functions. Experimental results, obtained by processing real data from one of the NFV data centers of the Vodafone network operator, highlight some of the capabilities of our system to identify interesting points in space and time of the evolution of the monitored infrastructure

Activation of PI3K Is Indispensable for Interleukin 7–mediated Viability, Proliferation, Glucose Use, and Growth of T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Cells

Interleukin (IL)-7 is essential for normal T cell development. Previously, we have shown that IL-7 increases viability and proliferation of T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cells by up-regulating Bcl-2 and down-regulating the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27kip1. Here, we examined the signaling pathways via which IL-7 mediates these effects. We investigated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK)–extracellular signal-regulated kinase (Erk) and phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)–Akt (protein kinase B) pathways, which have active roles in T cell expansion and have been implicated in tumorigenesis. IL-7 induced activation of the MEK–Erk pathway in T-ALL cells; however, inhibition of the MEK–Erk pathway by the use of the cell-permeable inhibitor PD98059, did not affect IL-7–mediated viability or cell cycle progression of leukemic cells. IL-7 induced PI3K-dependent phosphorylation of Akt and its downstream targets GSK-3, FOXO1, and FOXO3a. PI3K activation was mandatory for IL-7–mediated Bcl-2 up-regulation, p27kip1 down-regulation, Rb hyperphosphorylation, and consequent viability and cell cycle progression of T-ALL cells. PI3K signaling was also required for cell size increase, up-regulation of CD71, expression of the glucose transporter Glut1, uptake of glucose, and maintenance of mitochondrial integrity. Our results implicate PI3K as a major effector of IL-7–induced viability, metabolic activation, growth and proliferation of T-ALL cells, and suggest that PI3K and its downstream effectors may represent molecular targets for therapeutic intervention in T-ALL

Forecasting Operation Metrics for Virtualized Network Functions

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is the key technology that allows modern network operators to provide flexible and efficient services, by leveraging on general-purpose private cloud infrastructures. In this work, we investigate the performance of a number of metric forecasting techniques based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, and provide insights on how they can support the decisions of NFV operation teams. Our analysis focuses on both infrastructure-level and service-level metrics. The former can be fetched directly from the monitoring system of an NFV infrastructure, whereas the latter are typically provided by the monitoring components of the individual virtualized network functions. Our selected forecasting techniques are experimentally evaluated using real-life data, exported from a production environment deployed within some Vodafone NFV data centers. The results show what the compared techniques can achieve in terms of the forecasting accuracy and computational cost required to train them on production data

Combining power electronic converters and automation to simulate solar PV systems

This paper presents a solar photovoltaic panel simulator system with the ability to perform automatic tests in different condition according to manufacture parameters. This simulator is based on three buck-boost DC-DC converters controlled by a microcontroller and supported by a Programmable Logic Controller which is responsible for the automatic tests. This solution will allow to achieve fast response, like suddenly changes in the irradiation, temperature, or load. To control the power converter, it will be used a fast and robust sliding mode controller. Therefore, with the proposed system is possible to perform the I-V curve simulation of a solar PV panel, evaluate different MPPT algorithms considering different meteorological and load variation. The main advantage of this work is the possibility to evaluate and test several MPPT algorithms and understand the operation and typical operation of solar PV panels in different conditions. Several simulations and experimental results from a laboratory prototype are presented to confirm the theoretical operation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lusímetro Digital de medida em percentagem

Este lusímetro, tal como outros circuitos de laboratório, foi elaborado inicialmente para os antigos dias da UBI (1997-2011). Posteriormente foram usados nas semanas de promoção e divulgação da UBI (2012 – 2013). Ultimamente foram remontados com melhor performance e aspecto, sendo usados na Academia Júnior das Ciências (2014 - dias de hoje). Estes circuitos científico – pedagógicos têm também sido usados nos Dias da Ciência Viva, Semana das Ciências e Escolas de Verão. Estes projectos utilizam uma boa variedade de componentes dos laboratórios de Electrónica, Sistemas Digitais e Electromagnetismo, criando protótipos científicopedagógicos reais à disposição da comunidade (júnior, universitária e sénior). Este trabalho mostra o lusímetro digital de medida em percentagem de 0% a 99%. Foi aferido de modo a que 0% corresponde ao escuro e 99% à luz solar directa. Este lusímetro digital que se mostra na Fig.1, tal como outros aparelhos de medida, é constituído pelo sensor LDR 5mm, depois o calibrador é o AmpOp TL081 com ganho ajustado, depois a ADC 0804 converte a intensidade luminosa analógica, na correspondente digital binário natural. Depois há o conversor binário natural de 8 bits para BCD de 8 bits, baseado numa PLD22V10. Depois temos 2 conversores de BCD para 7 segmentos. Depois temos 2 packs de 8 resistências de 1k. Depois temos 2 displays de 7 segmentos com ponto decimal. Este lusímetro foi montado no laboratório de Electrónica do dep. Física da UBI. Possui um boa configuração e estabilidade, que é semelhante aos modelos comerciais. Este protótipo laboratorial pode ser tomado como referência pelos alunos, que estão projectando modelos laboratoriais semelhantes.Universidade da Beira Interiorinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Termómetro Digital de medida em Graus Celsius

Este termómetro digital, tal como muitos outros circuitos montados, foi elaborado inicialmente para os antigos dias da UBI (1997-2011). Posteriormente foram usados nas semanas de promoção e divulgação da UBI (2012 – 2013). Ultimamente foram remontados com melhor aspecto e performance, sendo usados na Academia Júnior das Ciências (2014 - dias de hoje). Estes projectos científico – pedagógicos têm também sido usados nos Dias da Ciência Viva, Semana das Ciências e Escolas de Verão. Estes projectos proporcionam, que diversos componentes do laboratório de Electrónica e Sistemas Digitais criem protótipos reais, à disposição da comunidade (júnior, universitária e sénior). Este trabalho mostra o termómetro digital aferido em graus celsius (ºC), possui uma escala de 0ºC a 255ºC e resolução de 1ºC. Este termómetro digital, que se mostra na Fig.1, tal como outros tipos de termómetro, é constituído pelo sensor, neste caso o LM35. Depois o calibrador é o AmpOP TL081 com o ganho ajutado. Depois a ADC0804 converte a tensão/ temperatura analógica na correspondente digital binário natural de 8bits. Depois há o conversor binário natural 8 bits para BCD 10 bits (3 displays) baseado na PLD22V10. Depois temos 3 conversores de BCD para 7 segmentos, 3 packs de 8 resistências de 1k e 3 displays de 7 segmentos com ponto decimal. Este termómetro foi montado no laboratório de Electrónica do dep. Física da UBI. Possui uma boa configuração e estabilidade semelhante aos modelos comerciais. Este protótipo laboratorial pode ser tomado como referência pelos alunos, que estão fazendo projectos semelhantes.Universidade da Beira Interiorinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Patient-physician discordance in assessment of adherence to inhaled controller medication: a cross-sectional analysis of two cohorts

We aimed to compare patient's and physician's ratings of inhaled medication adherence and to identify predictors of patient-physician discordance.(SFRH/BPD/115169/2016) funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT); ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) through the operations: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029130 ('mINSPIRERS—mHealth to measure and improve adherence to medication in chronic obstructive respiratory diseases—generalisation and evaluation of gamification, peer support and advanced image processing technologies') cofunded by the COMPETE2020 (Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização), Portugal 2020 and by Portuguese Funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio