Automatic leaf structure biometry: computer vision techniques and their applications in plant taxonomy

This paper proposes a new methodology to extract biometric features of plant leaf\ud structures. Combining computer vision techniques and plant taxonomy protocols, these\ud methods are capable of identifying plant species. The biometric measurements are concentrated\ud in leaf internal forms, specifically in the veination system. The methodology\ud was validated with real cases of plant taxonomy, and eleven species of passion fruit of the\ud genus Passiflora were used. The features extracted from the leaves were applied to the\ud neural network system to perform the classification of species. The results showed to be\ud very accurate in correctly differentiating among species with 97% of success. The computer\ud vision methods developed can be used to assist taxonomists to perform biometric\ud measurements in plant leaf structures.CNPq (Proc. 306628/2007-4

Closed Contour Fractal Dimension Estimation by the Fourier Transform

This work proposes a novel technique for the numerical calculus of the fractal dimension of fractal objects which can be represented as a closed contour. The proposed method maps the fractal contour onto a complex signal and calculates its fractal dimension using the Fourier transform. The Fourier power spectrum is obtained and an exponential relation is verified between the power and the frequency. From the parameter (exponent) of the relation, it is obtained the fractal dimension. The method is compared to other classical fractal dimension estimation methods in the literature, e. g., Bouligand-Minkowski, box-couting and classical Fourier. The comparison is achieved by the calculus of the fractal dimension of fractal contours whose dimensions are well-known analytically. The results showed the high precision and robustness of the proposed technique

A GESTÃO DO DESEMPENHO COMO DIAGNÓSTICO DE MELHORIAS A SEREM REALIZADAS NA GESTÃO DE PESSOAS EM UMA EMPRESA DE PLANOS DE SAÚDE PRIVADO

Em tempos atuais as empresas têm demonstrado grande interesse em encontrar maneiras de melhorar a produtividade e aumentar sua participação de mercado. Diante desses desafios foi proposto um estudo de caso numa empresa de planos de saúde privado, para avaliar, por meio da aplicação de três questionários, se o resultado da pesquisa de clima organizacional, culmina em um bom resultado da avaliação do desempenho dos empregados. E assim identificar se ocorre sinergismo entre esses fatores, com o intuito de mapear pontos de atuação que devem ser redirecionados. Participaram desse estudo 155 empregados, voluntários, respondendo três questionários, sendo: Avaliação de Desempenho do Empregado, Avaliação de Desempenho do Líder e Pesquisa de Clima Organizacional. Os resultados obtidos foram: 94,87% dos empregados tiveram excelente desempenho, 92,31% afirmaram existir um ambiente de trabalho agradável e 92,95% consideram o relacionamento satisfatório entre os colegas de trabalho. Conclui-se que, o clima organizacional favorável remete a um bom desempenho, onde a gestão de pessoas na empresa está atenta para proporcionar aos empregados qualidade de vida no trabalho

Pedogenesis and carbon sequestration in transformed agricultural soils of Sicily

The increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is a consequence of human activities leading to severe environmental deteriorations. Techniques are thus needed to sequester and reduce atmospheric carbon. One of the proposed techniques is the transformation or construction of new soils into which more organic carbon can be sequestered and CO2 be consumed by increased weathering. By using a chronosequence of new and transformed soils on crushed limestone (0–48 years) in a Mediterranean area (Sicily), we tried to quantify the amount of organic carbon that could be additionally sequestered and to derive the corresponding rates. A further aim was to trace chemical weathering and related CO2 consumption and the evolution of macropores that are relevant for water infiltration and plant nutrition. Owing to the irrigation of the table grape cultivation, the transformed soils developed fast. After about 48 years, the organic C stocks were near 12 kg m−2. The average org. C sequestration rates varied between 68 and 288 g m−2 yr−1. The C accumulation rates in the transformed soils are very high at the beginning and tend to decrease over (modelled) longer time scales. Over these 48 years, a substantial amount of carbonate was leached and reprecipitated as secondary carbonates. The proportion of secondary carbonates on the total inorganic carbon was up to 50%. Main mineralogical changes included the formation of interstratified clay minerals, the decrease of mica and increase of chloritic components as well as goethite. The atmospheric CO2 consumption due to silicate weathering was in the range of about 44–72 g C m−2 yr−1. Due to the high variability, the contribution of chemical weathering to CO2 consumption represents only an estimate. When summing up organic C sequestration and CO2 consumption by silicate weathering, rates in the order of 110–360 g C m−2 yr−1 are obtained. These are very high values. We estimated that high sequestration and CO2 consumption rates are maintained for about 50–100 years after soil transformation. The macropore volume decreased over the observed time span to half (from roughly 10 to 5 %). The transformation of soils may even amend their characteristics and increase agricultural production. Due to the relatively sandy character, enough macropores were present and no substantial compaction of the soils occurred. However, great caution has to be taken as such measures can trigger deterioration of both soil ecosystem services and soil quality

PD-L1 is expressed on human platelets and is affected by immune checkpoint therapy

Cancer immunotherapy has been revolutionised by drugs that enhance the ability of the immune system to detect and fight tumors. Immune checkpoint therapies that target the programmed death-1 receptor (PD-1), or its ligand (PD-L1) have shown unprecedented rates of durable clinical responses in patients with various cancer types. However, there is still a large fraction of patients that do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors, and the challenge remains to find cellular and molecular cues that could predict which patients would benefit from these therapies. Using a series of qualitative and quantitative methods we show here that PBMCs and platelets from smokers and patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) or lung cancer express and up-regulate PD-L1 independently of tumor stage. Furthermore, treatment with Atezolizumab, a fully humanised monoclonal antibody against PD-L1, in 4 patients with lung cancer caused a decrease in PD-L1 expression in platelets, which was restored over 20 days. Altogether, our findings reveal the expression of the main therapeutic target in current checkpoint therapies in human platelets and highlight their potential as biomarkers to predict successful therapeutic outcomes

PD-L1 is expressed on human platelets and is affected by immune checkpoint therapy

Cancer immunotherapy has been revolutionised by drugs that enhance the ability of the immune system to detect and fight tumors. Immune checkpoint therapies that target the programmed death-1 receptor (PD-1), or its ligand (PD-L1) have shown unprecedented rates of durable clinical responses in patients with various cancer types. However, there is still a large fraction of patients that do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors, and the challenge remains to find cellular and molecular cues that could predict which patients would benefit from these therapies. Using a series of qualitative and quantitative methods we show here that PBMCs and platelets from smokers and patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) or lung cancer express and up-regulate PD-L1 independently of tumor stage. Furthermore, treatment with Atezolizumab, a fully humanised monoclonal antibody against PD-L1, in 4 patients with lung cancer caused a decrease in PD-L1 expression in platelets, which was restored over 20 days. Altogether, our findings reveal the expression of the main therapeutic target in current checkpoint therapies in human platelets and highlight their potential as biomarkers to predict successful therapeutic outcomes

Impacto da atenção primária desenvolvida por uma cooperativa de saúde privada em um município do estado de Minas Gerais/Brasil.

Os processos de transição demográfica, epidemiológica e nutricional no Brasil resultaram em mudanças do perfil de morbidade e de mortalidade da população, com diminuição progressiva das mortes por doenças infecto-contagiosas e elevação das mortes por doenças crônicas não-transmissíveis (DCNT). Desta forma, o modelo de Atenção Primária, se apresenta como ferramenta importante para promoção da saúde e prevenção de doenças. Neste sentido, este modelo visa estimular a promoção da autonomia no exercício de comportamentos saudáveis. Este estudo, teve como objetivo identificar o programa de Medicina Preventiva da maior operadora de planos de saúde no Brasil como estratégia estimuladora de mudanças no estilo de vida de clientes empresariais, sob a ótica da autonomia. Tratou-se de estudo observacional de caráter retrospectivo, direcionado aos colaboradores assistidos pela cooperativa de planos de saúde privada aos clientes empresariais em um Município do Estado de Minas Gerais/Brasil. O procedimento de coleta de dados ocorreu por meio de dadosdo prontuário de 401 colaboradores que estavam em acompanhamento nas empresas, entre fevereiro a outubro de 2015. Foram analisadas as variáveis: perfil sociodemográfico, hábitos de vida, história familiar e dados antropométricos, antes e após acompanhamento e intervenção por parte da equipe da Medicina Preventiva para classificação de risco à saúde quanto às doenças DCNT e mudança de estilo de vida. A maior parte, 208 colaboradores eram do sexo feminino (51,87%). Antes da intervenção, 213 (53,12%) colaboradores foram classificados em médio risco e 188 (46,88%) em alto risco e nenhum em baixo risco, porém após intervenção, 194 (48,38%) colaboradores foram classificados em médio risco, 190 (47,38%) em alto risco e, 17 (4,24%)em baixo risco. Em relação aos níveis pressóricos, 107 (26,8%) dos colaboradores apresentaram, antes da intervenção pressão arterial 140/90 mmHg; e após a intervenção, 13 (15,9%) diminuíram a pressão arterial com mudança no estilo de vida e 38 (35,5%) dos colaboradores atingiram as metas com o uso corretode medicamentos. No que se refere ao tabagismo, 41 (10,2%) eram fumantes ativos e 12 (29,3%) abandonaram o tabagismo após a intervenção. 243 (60,6%) colaboradores eram sedentários, destes, 106 (43,6%) iniciaram atividade física através de estímulos e orientações individualizadas. Dos 401 colaboradores analisados, 305 (76,1%) eram portadores de sobrepeso ou obesidade; após a intervenção 140 (45,9%) reduziram o peso consideravelmente. Os resultados demonstraram a importância da abordagem multiprofissional nos moldes da promoção da saúde e prevenção de doenças após colaboradores empresariais, pois os indivíduos desenvolvem habilidades favoráveis à saúde após suas decisões, contribuindo para autonomia na busca por saúde e melhor qualidade de vida.81 p.Saúde1º Prêmio ANS: concurso de monografia sobre saúde suplementarTema 2 - Regulação Assistencial na Saúde Suplementar - 3º Luga

The use and limits of ITS data in the analysis of intraspecific variation in Passiflora L. (Passifloraceae)

The discovery and characterization of informative intraspecific genetic markers is fundamental for evolutionary and conservation genetics studies. Here, we used nuclear ribosomal ITS sequences to access intraspecific genetic diversity in 23 species of the genus Passiflora L. Some degree of variation was detected in 21 of these. The Passiflora and Decaloba (DC.) Rchb. subgenera showed significant differences in the sizes of the two ITS regions and in GC content, which can be related to reproductive characteristics of species in these subgenera. Furthermore, clear geographical patterns in the spatial distribution of sequence types were identified in six species. The results indicate that ITS may be a useful tool for the evaluation of intraspecific genetic variation in Passiflora

Classification of Camellia (Theaceae) Species Using Leaf Architecture Variations and Pattern Recognition Techniques

Leaf characters have been successfully utilized to classify Camellia (Theaceae) species; however, leaf characters combined with supervised pattern recognition techniques have not been previously explored. We present results of using leaf morphological and venation characters of 93 species from five sections of genus Camellia to assess the effectiveness of several supervised pattern recognition techniques for classifications and compare their accuracy. Clustering approach, Learning Vector Quantization neural network (LVQ-ANN), Dynamic Architecture for Artificial Neural Networks (DAN2), and C-support vector machines (SVM) are used to discriminate 93 species from five sections of genus Camellia (11 in sect. Furfuracea, 16 in sect. Paracamellia, 12 in sect. Tuberculata, 34 in sect. Camellia, and 20 in sect. Theopsis). DAN2 and SVM show excellent classification results for genus Camellia with DAN2's accuracy of 97.92% and 91.11% for training and testing data sets respectively. The RBF-SVM results of 97.92% and 97.78% for training and testing offer the best classification accuracy. A hierarchical dendrogram based on leaf architecture data has confirmed the morphological classification of the five sections as previously proposed. The overall results suggest that leaf architecture-based data analysis using supervised pattern recognition techniques, especially DAN2 and SVM discrimination methods, is excellent for identification of Camellia species

Alpha shapes: Determining 3D shape complexity across morphologically diverse structures

Background. Following recent advances in bioimaging, high-resolution 3D models of biological structures are now generated rapidly and at low-cost. To utilise this data to address evolutionary and ecological questions, an array of tools has been developed to conduct 3D shape analysis and quantify topographic complexity. Here we focus particularly on shape techniques applied to irregular-shaped objects lacking clear homologous landmarks, and propose the new ‘alpha-shapes’ method for quantifying 3D shape complexity. Methods. We apply alpha-shapes to quantify shape complexity in the mammalian baculum as an example of a morphologically disparate structure. Micro- computed-tomography (μCT) scans of bacula were conducted. Bacula were binarised and converted into point clouds. Following application of a scaling factor to account for absolute differences in size, a suite of alpha-shapes was fitted to each specimen. An alpha shape is a formed from a subcomplex of the Delaunay triangulation of a given set of points, and ranges in refinement from a very coarse mesh (approximating convex hulls) to a very fine fit. ‘Optimal’ alpha was defined as the degree of refinement necessary in order for alpha-shape volume to equal CT voxel volume, and was taken as a metric of overall shape ‘complexity’. Results Our results show that alpha-shapes can be used to quantify interspecific variation in shape ‘complexity’ within biological structures of disparate geometry. The ‘stepped’ nature of alpha curves is informative with regards to the contribution of specific morphological features to overall shape ‘complexity’. Alpha-shapes agrees with other measures of topographic complexity (dissection index, Dirichlet normal energy) in identifying ursid bacula as having low shape complexity. However, alpha-shapes estimates mustelid bacula as possessing the highest topographic complexity, contrasting with other shape metrics. 3D fractal dimension is found to be an inappropriate metric of complexity when applied to bacula. Conclusions. The alpha-shapes methodology can be used to calculate ‘optimal’ alpha refinement as a proxy for shape ‘complexity’ without identifying landmarks. The implementation of alpha-shapes is straightforward, and is automated to process large datasets quickly. Beyond genital shape, we consider the alpha-shapes technique to hold considerable promise for new applications across evolutionary, ecological and palaeoecological disciplines