Optimal Categorical Attribute Transformation for Granularity Change in Relational Databases for Binary Decision Problems in Educational Data Mining

This paper presents an approach for transforming data granularity in hierarchical databases for binary decision problems by applying regression to categorical attributes at the lower grain levels. Attributes from a lower hierarchy entity in the relational database have their information content optimized through regression on the categories histogram trained on a small exclusive labelled sample, instead of the usual mode category of the distribution. The paper validates the approach on a binary decision task for assessing the quality of secondary schools focusing on how logistic regression transforms the students and teachers attributes into school attributes. Experiments were carried out on Brazilian schools public datasets via 10-fold cross-validation comparison of the ranking score produced also by logistic regression. The proposed approach achieved higher performance than the usual distribution mode transformation and equal to the expert weighing approach measured by the maximum Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance and the area under the ROC curve at 0.01 significance level.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 2 table

Os guardiões da agrobiodiversidade no Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, na construção de autonomia camponesa

Os camponeses latinoamericanos empreendem os mais diversos processos de construção de autonomia, entre os quais a conservação da base de recursos da propriedade e o contato íntimo com a natureza. Neste contexto as sementes crioulas cumprem o papel fundamental para autonomia na produção e para soberania alimentar. Com o objetivo de analisar os processos de construção de autonomia camponesa a partir da manutenção da agrobiodiversiade e das sementes crioulas, foram realizadas entrevistas abertas e observação participante em cinco casos de experiências de guardiões de sementes crioulas de agosto/13 a agosto/14. As análises foram realizadas considerando o princípio da agência humana da Perspectiva Orientada ao Ator. Em comum elas possuem quatro aspectos principais: a organização coletiva, o apoio de mediadores, a autogestão da base de recursos e a produção voltada prioritariamente ao autoconsumo.The Latin American peasants undertake several different processes of building peasant autonomy, among them the conservation of the farm's resource base and intimate contact with nature. In this context, landraces play essential role for autonomy in production and food sovereignty. With the objective to analyze the peasant autonomy building processes from the maintenance of agrobiodiversity and landraces, open interviews and participant observation in five experiences of native seeds guardians were conduced from August/13 to August/14. The analysis were conducted considering the principle of human agency of the Actororiented perspective. They have in common four main aspects: the collective organization, the support of mediators, self-management of the resource base and production aiming primarily the self consumption.Eje A5: Sistemas de conocimientoFacultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Prejudice, Vulnerability, Adhesion Process, Religiousness Regarding the Life Routine with AIDS: Life Stories

Objective: To communicate life stories of people who suffer from acquired immunodeficiency-syndrome with a higher vulnerability registered at the Municipal Secretary of Social Assistance and the diagnostic’s influence on their daily routine. Method: Descriptive and exploratory study based on oral life history. Thirteen people with AIDs took part in the study via a semi-structured interview. The narratives were analyzed using Bardin’s thematic content analysis. Results: Three thematic axes emerged from Bardin’s content analysis: prejudice and discrimination regarding the life routine with aids; Reaction when facing the diagnostic and the adhesion process for the antiretroviral treatment; Confrontation of religion and religiousness on people with aids. Conclusion: The people living with aids, a chronic and stigmatizing disease, need the support of multidisciplinary teams and an improvement in relation to the access, the coverage and the meaning assigned to the disease, besides a better quality of life and social assistance. We conclude that religion did not contribute to facing these people’s conditions. It brought blame, incorrect information that may impair the treatment and their follow-up. One infers that health education regarding HIV/AIDS needs to be remodeled on all of society’s segments

Os guardiões da agrobiodiversidade no Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, na construção de autonomia camponesa

Os camponeses latinoamericanos empreendem os mais diversos processos de construção de autonomia, entre os quais a conservação da base de recursos da propriedade e o contato íntimo com a natureza. Neste contexto as sementes crioulas cumprem o papel fundamental para autonomia na produção e para soberania alimentar. Com o objetivo de analisar os processos de construção de autonomia camponesa a partir da manutenção da agrobiodiversiade e das sementes crioulas, foram realizadas entrevistas abertas e observação participante em cinco casos de experiências de guardiões de sementes crioulas de agosto/13 a agosto/14. As análises foram realizadas considerando o princípio da agência humana da Perspectiva Orientada ao Ator. Em comum elas possuem quatro aspectos principais: a organização coletiva, o apoio de mediadores, a autogestão da base de recursos e a produção voltada prioritariamente ao autoconsumo.The Latin American peasants undertake several different processes of building peasant autonomy, among them the conservation of the farm's resource base and intimate contact with nature. In this context, landraces play essential role for autonomy in production and food sovereignty. With the objective to analyze the peasant autonomy building processes from the maintenance of agrobiodiversity and landraces, open interviews and participant observation in five experiences of native seeds guardians were conduced from August/13 to August/14. The analysis were conducted considering the principle of human agency of the Actororiented perspective. They have in common four main aspects: the collective organization, the support of mediators, self-management of the resource base and production aiming primarily the self consumption.Eje A5: Sistemas de conocimientoFacultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Biometric traits as a tool for the identification and breeding of coffea canephora genotypes

grants n. 84320893 grants n. 420789/2016-2 n. 304687/2017-0 E-26/202.323/2017 UID/04129/2020 UIDP/04035/2020Cross-pollination and gametophytic self-incompatibility reduce the stability of Coffea canephora genotypes. This is an important crop for Brazil, the largest producer of this type of coffee and also a major exporter. The study of biometric characteristics is essential to assist in the selection of promising plant materials. We examined the diversity of morpho-agronomic traits of genotypes of C. canephora cv. Conilon through the evaluation of branch and leaf parameters. Assessments included plagiotropic branch length, number of nodes in plagiotropic branches, distance between nodes in plagiotropic branches, orthotropic branch length, number of nodes in orthotropic branch, distance between nodes in orthotropic branch, plant height, canopy diameter, leaf length, leaf width, and leaf area in two periods. The data from the 43 coffee genotypes were tested by multivariate and cluster analyses. Six groups were formed by the Tocher optimization method, and five groups by the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) hierarchical method, suggesting an important genetic variability among plant materials. Both Tocher optimization and UPGMA hierarchical methods were consistent for clustering the genotypes, ordering them in six and five dissimilar groups, respectively, with genotypes 25 and 37 standing out with the greatest dissimilarity, constituting isolated groups by both methods. Pearson’s correlation ranged from very weak to very strong, positive and negative, among the characteristics, as also shown by principal component analyses. These analyses indicated the morpho-agronomic traits with a greater degree of correlation, assisting in the choice of promising plant materials. The genetic parameters estimates demonstrate genetic variability and thus breeding potential within the Conilon coffee genotypes studied. These results emphasize the usefulness of biometric evaluations as a tool for the identification and breeding of genotypes to compose new Conilon coffee cultivars.publishersversionpublishe

Uma arquitetura XML para computação voluntária P2P

Diversas arquiteturas propostas para computação colaborativa, ou computação voluntária, apresentam as seguintes características: (i) controle centralizado; (ii) setup complexo para não-especialistas. Este artigo introduz a IeC (Infraestrutura Colaborativa): uma arquitetura para computação colaborativa peer-to-peer — P2P — implementada sobre XML, que é de fácil implantação por usuários não-especialistas e de simples utilização por desenvolvedores de aplicações para ambientes colaborativos. O uso de um mecanismo simples de escalonamento distribuído para o balanceamento de carga nos nós computacionais participantes é avaliado em termos da escalabilidade da arquitetura proposta e da qualidade do balanceamento. Tal foi obtido através de simulações usando-se como benchmark um lote de problemas do tipo RCPS — Resource Constrained Project Scheduling

Uma abordagem Branch and Bound para RCPSP em um ambiente de computação colaborativa

Um projeto pode ser representado por uma rede de atividades formando um grafo de precedência, direcionado e acíclico. Quando a quantidade de recursos existentes é limitada, o problema de determinação do menor tempo de realização do projeto é conhecido como RCPSP (Resource Constrained Project Scheduling). A solução ótima para o problema RCPS é reconhecidamente NP-hard. Este artigo mostra um algoritmo distribuído para a solução ótima do problema RCPS usando uma abordagem branch and bound. Este algoritmo foi implementado e avaliado num ambiente de computação colaborativa, do tipo peer to peer, com escalonamento adaptativo distribuído para balanceamento de carga nos nós computacionais. Os resultados sugerem a escalabilidade do algoritmo apenas com a adição de nós computacionais

Molecular and morphophysiological responses cocoa leaves with different concentrations of anthocyanin to variations in light levels

Theobroma cacao gives higher yield when cultivated in full sun under irrigation system with fertilization, because is a species little conservative in relation the efficiency of water use. On the other hand, T. cacao is usually cultivated under shade conditions in ‘Cabruca’ and agroforestry systems but with low yield. It has been observed under field conditions that the genotypes of T. cacao with high concentration of anthocyanins in young leaves are more tolerant to high irradiance stress when grown in full sun. The accumulation of flavonoids or other UVabsorbing compounds in the leaf epidermis is one of the most important mechanisms to screening out UV-B radiation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different levels of light on three clonal cacao genotypes (‘Catongo’, SCA-6 and SJ-2), contrasting in relation to accumulation of anthocyanin levels in young leaves, by evaluations of photosynthesis, activity of guaiacol peroxidase (GPX), chloroplastid pigment contents and vacuolar (anthocyanins) flavonoids contents, anatomical characteristics and gene expression of the leaf. In summary, (i) the anthocyanins contents in leaf level did not provide protection against photoinhibition in T. cacao, (ii) the ‘Catongo’ and SJ-2 genotypes showed greater phenotypic plasticity to the morphology and the chloroplastidic pigment contents in the leaf, while the SCA-6 genotype allocated more in the flavonoids content and hsp70 gene expression; (iii) the relative expression of the genes psbA and psbO, did not vary between genotypes under irradiance stress

Design procedures for sustainable structural concretes using wastes and industrial by-products

The protection of the environment must be a priority in our society, and the construction sector can contribute significantly to this goal. Construction, being one of the industrial sectors that is more demanding in terms of raw materials, must reinforce its effort to implement, in a more profound and systematic way, the paradigm of the circular economy. In this sense, in recent years several studies have been trying to contribute solutions aimed at reintroducing industrial by-products or residues in new products for the construction industry. It should be noted that nowadays it is increasingly important to introduce a higher percentage of recycled materials in concrete. In this context, the present work addresses the appropriateness of a design procedure proposed to maximize the content of electric arc furnace slag (EAFS) and include recycled tire steel fibers (RTSF) in the production of more sustainable structural concretes. For this, the properties of various concrete mixtures at the fresh and hardened state, obtained by the substantial substitution of coarse and fine natural aggregates by EAFS and fly ash (FA), were investigated. The design of EAFS mixtures was based on two conventional reference mixtures (REF1 and REF2), and by using the modified Andreasen and Andersen particle packing model, these were optimized to achieve maximum packing density. Compressive strength, modulus of elasticity behavior, and fresh and physical properties were assessed in order to define the best mix proportions with respect to the predefined requirements of ordinary mixtures. Untreated recycled tire steel fibers (RTSF) were included in the developed sustainable concrete to perform a comparison of the physical properties with unreinforced concretes developed with natural aggregates (REF2) and with EAFS aggregates (EAFS8D1). This incorporation was intended to improve the physical behavior of unreinforced concretes with EAFS aggregates. Mixtures with high percentages of waste aggregates up to 70% (in weight), and 10% (in weight) of FA were obtained, showing competitive mechanical behavior compared to REF1 and REF2. These concrete compositions showed minimum and maximum compressive strengths between 9 MPa and 37 MPa, respectively. This study coverd the two major classes of concrete used as structural material, namely structural concrete and fiber reinforced concrete.This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia grant number SFRH/BD/135790/2018) and projects with references POCI-01-0247-FEDER-033834, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000032.The first author would also like to thank FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) for the funding through the PhD grant SFRH/BD/135790/2018. The authors would like to thank DST company, the project RENEw, POCI-01-0247-FEDER-033834, funded by Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) and Programa Operacional da Competitividade e Internacionalização do Portugal 2020 (COMPETE 2020), “Next generation monitoring of coastal ecosystems in a scenario of global change”, NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000032, funded by Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) and Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE2020), and “CirMat: CIRcular aggregates for sustainable road and building MATerials” is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and Norway Grants, operationalized by the Portuguese Office of the Secretary of State for the Environment. They are also very grateful to the companies SECIL and SIKA for the material provided that contributed to the realization of this study