On Extensibility of Software Systems

This report contains the progress report written as part of the author's PhD qualifying exam. It describes initial work carried out in analyzing and improving the extensibility of software systems, including a detailed case study analyzing the extensibility of the Proof Obligation Generator (POG) of the Overture tool. Additional extension work includes improving the output format of the POG and support for additional logic systems. Future work for the remaining half of the PhD is also discussed, including ways to combine formal modelling and extensibility analysis and also techniques for multi-paradigm extensibility

Analysing call graphs for software architecture quality profiling

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia de InformáticaRisk assessment is an important topic for financial institution nowadays, especially in the context of loan applications or loan requests and credit scoring. Some of these institutions have already implemented their own custom credit scoring systems to evaluate their clients’ risk supporting the loan application decision with this indicator. In fact, the information gathered by financial institutions constitutes a valuable source of data for the creation of information assets from which credit scoring mechanisms may be developed. Historically, most financial institutions support their decision mechanisms on regression algorithms, however, these algorithms are no longer considered the state of the art on decision algorithms. This fact has led to the interest on the research of new types of learning algorithms from machine learning able to deal with the credit scoring problem. The work presented in this dissertation has as an objective the evaluation of state of the art algorithms for credit decision proposing new optimization to improve their performance. In parallel, a suggestion system on credit scoring is also proposed in order to allow the perception of how algorithm produce decisions on clients’ loan applications, provide clients with a source of research on how to improve their chances of being granted with a loan and also develop client profiles that suit specific credit conditions and credit purposes. At last, all the components studied and developed are combined on a platform able to deal with the problem of credit scoring through an experts system implemented upon a multi-agent system. The use of multi-agent systems to solve complex problems in today’s world is not a new approach. Nevertheless, there has been a growing interest in using its properties in conjunction with machine learning and data mining techniques in order to build efficient systems. The work presented aims to demonstrate the viability and utility of this type of systems for the credit scoring problem.Hoje em dia, a análise de risco é um tópico importante para as instituições financeiras, especialmente no contexto de pedidos de empréstimo e de classificação de crédito. Algumas destas instituições têm já implementados sistemas de classificação de crédito personalizados para avaliar o risco dos seus clientes baseando a decisão do pedido de empréstimo neste indicador. De facto, a informação recolhida pelas instituições financeiras constitui uma valiosa fonte de dados para a criação de ativos de informação, de onde mecanismos de classificação de crédito podem ser desenvolvidos. Historicamente, a maioria das instituições financeiras baseia os seus mecanismos de decisão sobre algoritmos de regressão. No entanto, estes algoritmos já não são considerados o estado da arte em algoritmos de decisão. Este facto levou ao interesse na pesquisa de diferentes algoritmos de aprendizagem baseados em algoritmos de aprendizagem máquina, capaz de lidar com o problema de classificação de crédito. O trabalho apresentado nesta dissertação tem como objetivo avaliar o estado da arte em algoritmos de decisão de crédito, propondo novos conceitos de optimização que melhorem o seu desempenho. Paralelamente, um sistema de sugestão é proposto no âmbito do tema de decisão de crédito, de forma a possibilitar a perceção de como os algoritmos tomam decisões relativas a pedidos de crédito por parte de clientes, dotando-os de uma fonte de pesquisa sobre como melhorar as possibilidades de concessão de crédito e, ainda, elaborar perfis de clientes que se adequam a determinadas condições e propósitos de crédito. Por último, todos os componentes estudados e desenvolvidos são combinados numa plataforma capaz de lidar com o problema da classificação de crédito através de um sistema de especialistas, implementado como um sistema multi-agente. O uso de sistemas multi-agente para resolver problemas complexos no mundo de hoje não é uma nova abordagem. No entanto, tem havido um interesse crescente no uso das suas propriedades, em conjunto com técnicas de aprendizagem máquina e data mining para construir sistemas mais eficazes. O trabalho desenvolvido e aqui apresentado pretende demonstrar a viabilidade e utilidade do uso deste tipo de sistemas no problema de decisão de crédito

Physical activity and affect of the elderly: Contribution to the validation of the Positive and Negative Affect Shedule (PANAS) in the Portuguese population

The concept of affect corresponds to the emotional dimension of subjective well-being (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). It is represented by two dimensions (negative affect and positive affect), which were the basis of the development of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). It was translated and validated for the Portuguese population by Galinha and Pais-Ribeiro (2005b). Nevertheless, because the Portuguese version was not validated in a sample of Portuguese elderly, the goals of this study consisted in the translation of the scale (PANAS) from the original version of 20 items and the validation of its measurement model (including a shortened version) for a sample of Portuguese elderly (n = 311), aged 60 years or older (M = 68.53; DP = 6.69); it was then tested by a confirmatory factorial analysis. The results demonstrated that the measurement model (two factors and 10 items) of the shortened Portuguese version of the PANAS presented acceptable psychometric qualities, which adjusted to the data in a satisfactory way (factorial weights ranging between .57 and .70 in positive affect and between .52 and .68 in negative affect). We also concluded that older adults who practice more physical activity perceive higher levels of positive affect F(2, 297) = 3,78, p < .05; η2 = .025, and lower levels of negative affect F (2, 297) = 6,24, p < .001; η2 = .040).This project was supported by the National Funds through FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/DTP/04045/2019) - and the European Fund for regional development (FEDER) allocated by European Union through the COMPETE 2020 Programme (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006969)

Epidemiology of periodontal disease among the elderly

The present study aims to reflect on the oral health status of the elderly, addressing periodontal disease, as well as the importance of oral health, general health and quality of life. The methodology adopted consisted of a bibliographic research of scientific articles indexed in PUBMED® and Google Scholar® with the following combined keywords: “Periodontal Disease”, “Gerodontology”, “Oral Health”, “Elderly” and “Epidemiology”, either in Portuguese or in English. The exclusion criteria for the selection of the scientific articles used consisted in limiting the research to the Portuguese and English languages, limiting the publication date to the last 10 years, and only scientific articles referring to the epidemiology of periodontal disease among the elderly. Therefore, from a total of 33 scientific articles, only 17 scientific articles were selected for the present research. The most recent studies do show that periodontal disease is clearly a public health issue, increasing among all ages. However, this oral pathology should be carefully analyzed among the elderly considering the higher risk of association with the development of other systemic diseases and also the physiological, mental and social changes that characterize this specific age group.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Two-dimensional and three-dimensional techniques for determining the kinematic patterns for hindlimb obstacle avoidance during sheep locomotion

ABSTRACT: Analysis of locomotion is often used as a measure for impairment and recovery following experimental peripheral nerve injury. Compared to rodents, sheep offer several advantages for studying peripheral nerve regeneration. In the present study, we compared for the first time, two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) hindlimb kinematics during obstacle avoidance in the ovine model. This study obtained kinematic data to serve as a template for an objective assessment of the ankle joint motion in future studies of common peroneal nerve (CP) injury and repair in the ovine model. The strategy used by the sheep to bring the hindlimb over a moderately high obstacle, set to 10% of its hindlimb length, was pronounced knee, ankle and metatarsophalangeal flexion when approaching and clearing the obstacle. Despite the overall time course kinematic patterns about the hip, knee, ankle, and metatarsophalangeal were identical, we found significant differences between values of the 2D and 3D joint angular motion. Our results showed that the most apparent changes that occurred during the gait cycle were for the ankle (2D-measured STANCEmax: 157±2.4 degrees vs. 3D-measured STANCEmax: 151±1.2 degrees; P<.05) and metatarsophalangeal joints (2D-measured STANCEmin: 151±2.2 degrees vs. 3D-measured STANCEmin: 162 ± 2.2 degrees; P<.01 and 2D-measured TO: 163±4.9 degrees vs. 3D-measured TO: 177±1.4 degrees; P<.05), whereas the hip and knee joints were much less affected. Data and techniques described here are useful for an objective assessment of altered gait after CP injury and repairin an ovine model

Predictors of cardiac involvement in idiopathic inflammatory myopathies

Copyright © 2023 Bandeira, Dourado, Melo, Martins, Fraga, Ferraro, Saraiva, Sousa, Parente, Soares, Correia, Almeida, Dinis, Pinto, Oliveira Pinheiro, Rato, Beirão, Samões, Santos, Mazeda, Chícharo, Faria, Neto, Lourenço, Brites, Rodrigues, Silva-Dinis, Dias, Araújo, Martins, Couto, Valido, Santos, Barreira, Fonseca and Campanilho-Marques. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Objectives: Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) are a group of rare disorders that can affect the heart. This work aimed to find predictors of cardiac involvement in IIM. Methods: Multicenter, open cohort study, including patients registered in the IIM module of the Rheumatic Diseases Portuguese Register (Reuma.pt/Myositis) until January 2022. Patients without cardiac involvement information were excluded. Myo(peri)carditis, dilated cardiomyopathy, conduction abnormalities, and/or premature coronary artery disease were considered. Results: 230 patients were included, 163 (70.9%) of whom were females. Thirteen patients (5.7%) had cardiac involvement. Compared with IIM patients without cardiac involvement, these patients had a lower bilateral manual muscle testing score (MMT) at the peak of muscle weakness [108.0 ± 55.0 vs 147.5 ± 22.0, p=0.008] and more frequently had oesophageal [6/12 (50.0%) vs 33/207 (15.9%), p=0.009] and lung [10/13 (76.9%) vs 68/216 (31.5%), p=0.001] involvements. Anti-SRP antibodies were more commonly identified in patients with cardiac involvement [3/11 (27.3%) vs 9/174 (5.2%), p=0.026]. In the multivariate analysis, positivity for anti-SRP antibodies (OR 104.3, 95% CI: 2.5-4277.8, p=0.014) was a predictor of cardiac involvement, regardless of sex, ethnicity, age at diagnosis, and lung involvement. Sensitivity analysis confirmed these results. Conclusion: Anti-SRP antibodies were predictors of cardiac involvement in our cohort of IIM patients, irrespective of demographical characteristics and lung involvement. We suggest considering frequent screening for heart involvement in anti-SRP-positive IIM patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL : A data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in P ortugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with 26% of all species being includedin the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associatedwith habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mam-mals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion formarine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems func-tionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is cru-cial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS INPORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublishedgeoreferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mam-mals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira thatincludes 105,026 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occur-ring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live obser-vations/captures (43%), sign surveys (35%), camera trapping (16%),bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radiotracking, and inquiries that represent lessthan 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: (1) burrowsjsoil moundsjtunnel, (2) capture, (3) colony, (4) dead animaljhairjskullsjjaws, (5) genetic confirmation, (6) inquiries, (7) observation of live animal (8),observation in shelters, (9) photo trappingjvideo, (10) predators dietjpelletsjpine cones/nuts, (11) scatjtrackjditch, (12) telemetry and (13) vocalizationjecholocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and100 m (76%). Rodentia (n=31,573) has the highest number of records followedby Chiroptera (n=18,857), Carnivora (n=18,594), Lagomorpha (n=17,496),Cetartiodactyla (n=11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n=7008). The data setincludes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened(e.g.,Oryctolagus cuniculus[n=12,159],Monachus monachus[n=1,512],andLynx pardinus[n=197]). We believe that this data set may stimulate thepublication of other European countries data sets that would certainly contrib-ute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting onthe development of more accurate and tailored conservation managementstrategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite thisdata paper when the data are used in publications.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mammals in Portugal: a data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in Portugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with ~26% of all species being included in the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associated with habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mammals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion for marine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems functionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is crucial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublished georeferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mammals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira that includes 105,026 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occurring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live observations/captures (43%), sign surveys (35%), camera trapping (16%), bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radiotracking, and inquiries that represent less than 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: (1) burrows | soil mounds | tunnel, (2) capture, (3) colony, (4) dead animal | hair | skulls | jaws, (5) genetic confirmation, (6) inquiries, (7) observation of live animal (8), observation in shelters, (9) photo trapping | video, (10) predators diet | pellets | pine cones/nuts, (11) scat | track | ditch, (12) telemetry and (13) vocalization | echolocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and 100 m (76%). Rodentia (n =31,573) has the highest number of records followed by Chiroptera (n = 18,857), Carnivora (n = 18,594), Lagomorpha (n = 17,496), Cetartiodactyla (n = 11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n = 7008). The data set includes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened (e.g., Oryctolagus cuniculus [n = 12,159], Monachus monachus [n = 1,512], and Lynx pardinus [n = 197]). We believe that this data set may stimulate the publication of other European countries data sets that would certainly contribute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting on the development of more accurate and tailored conservation management strategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications

Effect of different types of exercise in adult subjects with fibromyalgia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials

Exercise has been recommended for fibromyalgia treatment. However, doubts related to exercise benefits remain unclear. The objective of this study was to summarise, through a systematic review with meta-analysis, the available evidence on the effects of aerobic, resistance and stretching exercise on pain, depression, and quality of life. Search was performed using electronic databases Pubmed and Cochrane Library. Studies with interventions based on aerobic exercise, resistance exercise and stretching exercise published until July 2020 and updated in December 2021, were identified. Randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses involving adults with fibromyalgia were also included. Eighteen studies were selected, including a total of 1184 subjects. The effects were summarised using standardised mean differences (95% confidence intervals) by random effect models. In general, aerobic exercise seems to reduce pain perception, depression and improves quality of life; it also improves mental and physical health-related quality of life. Resistance exercise decreases pain perception and improves quality of life and moreover improves the physical dimension of health-related quality of life. It was also observed that resistance exercise appears to have a non-significant positive effect on depression and the mental dimension of health-related quality of life. Studies revealed that stretching exercise reduces the perception and additionally improves quality of life and health-related quality of life. However, a non-significant effect was observed on depression. We conclude that exercise may be a way to reduce depression, and pain and improve the quality of life in adult subjects with fibromyalgia and should be part of the treatment for this pathology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio