Search results for: Daniel De Oliveira

Authors: Lucas Oliveira Gomes Ferreira, André Luiz Marques Serrano

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The fiscal decentralization driven by the 1988 Constitution was responsible for granting greater autonomy to Brazilian subnational entities, as states and municipalities were entrusted with greater responsibilities to provide local public goods and services. However, the revenues necessary to implement the new attributions are largely received through intergovernmental transfers and not by local tax collection. The literature points out that public spending increases more by receiving unconditional and nonmatching (lump sum) intergovernmental grants than by an increase in taxpayers' income. This effect, called the flypaper effect, happens because the funds received could be used to reduce local taxes, meaning an increase in the citizen's private income. However, they are applied in the public sector in the form of expenses. The present work investigates the existence of the flypaper effect in Brazilian municipalities during the first two decades of the 21st century. The research uses the Municipal Participation Fund (FPM) as a grant proxy from 2000 to 2019 through econometrics of cross-section and panel data for all 5,568 municipalities. The results indicate the flypaper effect in Brazilian municipalities, as well as the proportional relationship between the receipt of constitutional transfers and the increase in public expenditure.

Keywords: flypaper effect, intergovernmental transfers, municipal participation fund, fiscal federalism

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Authors: Daniel Alvarado Valencia

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Nowadays, the market offers us solutions for everything, creating the idea of an immediate availability of anything we could desire, and the Internet is the mean through which to obtain all this. The proposal of this conference is that this logic puts the subjects in a situation of self-exploitation, and considers the psyche as a productive force by configuring affection and desire from a neoliberal value perspective. It uses Tinder, starting from ethnographical data from Mexico City users, as an example for this. Tinder is an application created to get dates, have sexual encounters and find a partner. It works from the creation and management of a digital profile. It is an example of how futuristic and lonely the current era can be since we got used to interact with other people through screens and images. However, at the same time, it provides solutions to loneliness, since technology transgresses, invades and alters social practices in different ways. Tinder fits into this contemporary context, it is a concrete example of the processes of technification in which social bonds develop through certain devices offered by neoliberalism, through consumption, and where the search of love and courtship are possible through images and their consumption.

Keywords: desire, image, merchandise, neoliberalism

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Authors: Daniel Suarez Alonso

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This study has tried to focus on the alternatives offered to police institutions by the implementation of Geographic Information systems. Providing operational police commanders with effective and efficient tools, providing analytical capacity to reduce criminal opportunities, must be a priority. Given the intimate connection of crimes and infractions to the environment, law enforcement institutions must respond proactively to changing circumstances of anti-norm behaviors. To this end, it has been intended to analyze the antisocial spatial distribution of the city of Móstoles, trying to identify those spatiotemporal patterns that occur to anticipate their commission through the planning of dynamic preventive strategies. The application of GIS offers alternative analytical approaches to the different problems that underlie the development of life in society, focusing resources on those places with the highest concentration of incidents.

Keywords: data analysis, police organizations, police prevention, geographic information systems

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Authors: Nathalia Florencia Barros Azeredo, Josué Martins Gonçalves, Pamela De Oliveira Rossini, Koiti Araki, Lucio Angnes

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This work demonstrates the electroanalysis of uric acid (UA) at very low working potential (0 V vs Ag/AgCl) directly in body fluids such as saliva and sweat using electrodes modified with mixed -Ni0.75Zn0.25(OH)2 nanoparticles exhibiting stable electrocatalytic responses from alkaline down to weakly acidic media (pH 14 to 3 range). These materials were prepared for the first time and fully characterized by TEM, XRD, and spectroscopic techniques. The electrochemical properties of the modified electrodes were evaluated in a fast and simple procedure for uric acid analyses based on cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry, pushing down the detection and quantification limits (respectively of 2.3*10-8 and 7.6*10-8 mol L-1) with good repeatability (RSD = 3.2% for 30 successive analyses pH 14). Finally, the possibility of real application was demonstrated upon realization of unexpectedly robust and sensitive modified FTO (fluorine doped tin oxide) glass and screen-printed sensors for measurement of uric acid directly in real saliva and sweat samples, with no significant interference of usual concentrations of ascorbic acid, acetaminophen, lactate and glucose present in those body fluids (Fig. 1).

Keywords: nickel hydroxide, mixed catalyst, uric acid sensors, biofluids

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Authors: Noemia Gomes de Mattos de Mesquita, José Eduardo Ferreira de Oliveira, Arimatea Quaresma Ferraz

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Stops to exchange cutting tool, to set up again the tool in a turning operation with CNC or to measure the workpiece dimensions have a direct influence on production. The premature removal of the cutting tool results in high cost of machining since the parcel relating to the cost of the cutting tool increases. On the other hand, the late exchange of cutting tool also increases the cost of production because getting parts out of the preset tolerances may require rework for its use when it does not cause bigger problems such as breaking of cutting tools or the loss of the part. Therefore, the right time to exchange the tool should be well defined when wanted to minimize production costs. When the flank wear is the limiting tool life, the time predetermination that a cutting tool must be used for the machining occurs within the limits of tolerance can be done without difficulty. This paper aims to show how the life of the cutting tool can be calculated taking into account the cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed and depth of cut), workpiece material, power of the machine, the dimensional tolerance of the part, the finishing surface, the geometry of the cutting tool and operating conditions of the machine tool, once known the parameters of Taylor algebraic structure. These parameters were raised for the ABNT 1038 steel machined with cutting tools of hard metal.

Keywords: machining, productions, cutting condition, design, manufacturing, measurement

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Authors: Yuting Wu, Faraz Choudhury, Daniel Benjamin, James Whalin, Joshua Blatz, Leon Shohet, Michael Sussman, Mark Richards

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Plasma-Induced Modification of Biomolecules (PLIMB) has been developed as a technology, which, together with mass spectrometry, measures three-dimensional structural characteristics of proteins. This technique uses hydroxyl radicals generated by atmospheric-pressure plasma discharge to react with the solvent-accessible side chains of protein in an aqueous solution. In this work, we investigate the three-dimensional structure of hemoglobin and myoglobin using PLIMB. Additional modifications to these proteins, such as oxidation, fragmentations, and conformational changes caused by PLIMB are also explored. These results show that PLIMB, coupled with mass spectrometry, is an effective way to determine solvent access to hemoproteins. Furthermore, we show that many factors, including pH and the electrical parameters used to generate the plasma, have a significant influence on solvent accessibility.

Keywords: plasma, hemoglobin, myoglobin, solvent access

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Authors: Sphiwe Simelane, Daniel Madyira

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The use of natural fibers requires that they should be treated in preparation for their use in Natural Fiber-reinforced polymer composites. This paper reports on the effects of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) treatment on the surface of coconut fibers. The fibers were subjected to 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% NaOH concentrations and soaked for 4 hours and thoroughly rinsed and allowed to dry in the open air for seven days, after which time they were dried in an oven for 30 minutes. Untreated and treated coconut fibers were observed under the Scanning Electron Microscope and it was noted that the surface structure of the fibers was modified differently by the different NaOH concentrations, and the resultant colour of the treated fibers got darker as the solution concentration increased, and the texture felt rougher to the touch as a result of the erosion of the fiber surface. Further, the increase in alkali concentration striped the surface of more constituents, thus exposing “pits” and other surface components rendering the surface rough.

Keywords: coconut fiber, scanning electron microscope, sodium hydroxide, surface treatment

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Authors: Robson C. Santos, David D. Oliveira, Matheus M. Reis, Gerson G. Cunha, Marcos A. C. Moreira

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The project demonstrates the construction of a solar power generation, integrated inverter equipment to a "Grid-Tie" by converting direct current generated by solar panels, into alternating current, the same parameters of frequency and voltage concessionaire distribution network. The energy generated is quantified by smart metering module that transmits the information in specified periods of time to a microcontroller via GSM modem. The modem provides the measured data on the internet, using networks and cellular antennas. The monitoring, fault detection and maintenance are performed by a supervisory station. Employed board types, best inverter selection and studies about control equipment and devices have been described. The article covers and explores the global trend of implementing smart distribution electrical energy networks and the incentive to use solar renewable energy. There is the possibility of the excess energy produced by the system be purchased by the local power utility. This project was implemented in residences in the rural community of the municipality of Cabo Frio/RJ. Data could be seen through daily measurements during the month of November 2013.

Keywords: rural residence, supervisory, smart grid, solar energy

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Authors: Jhonnatan Eduardo Zamudio Palacios, Oscar Leonardo Mosquera Dussan, Daniel Guzman Perez, Daniel Alfonso Botero Rosas, Oscar Fabian Rubiano Espinosa, Jose Antonio Garcia Torres, Ivan Dario Chavarro, Ivan Ramiro Rodriguez Camacho, Jaime Orlando Rodriguez

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The training of cilsitas with some type of disability finds in the technological development an indispensable ally, generating every day advances to contribute to the quality of life allowing to maximize the capacities of the athletes. The performance of a cyclist depends on physiological and biomechanical factors, such as aerodynamic profile, bicycle measurements, connecting rod length, pedaling systems, type of competition, among others. This study particularly focuses on the description of the dynamic model of a transtibial prosthesis for Paralympic cyclists. To make the model, two points are chosen: in the radius centers of rotation of the plate and pinion of the track bicycle. The parametric scheme of the track bike represents a model of 6 degrees of freedom due to the displacement in X - Y of each of the reference points of the angles of the curve profile β, cant of the velodrome α and the angle of rotation of the connecting rod φ. The force exerted on the crank of the bicycle varies according to the angles of the curve profile β, the velodrome cant of α and the angle of rotation of the crank φ. The behavior is analyzed through the Matlab R2015a software. The average strength that a cyclist exerts on the cranks of a bicycle is 1,607.1 N, the Paralympic cyclist must perform a force on each crank about 803.6 N. Once the maximum force associated with the movement has been determined, it is continued to the dynamic modeling of the transtibial prosthesis that represents a model of 6 degrees of freedom with displacement in X - Y in relation to the angles of rotation of the hip π, knee γ and ankle λ. Subsequently, an analysis of the kinematic behavior of the prosthesis was carried out by means of SolidWorks 2017 and Matlab R2015a, which was used to model and analyze the variation of the hip angles π, knee γ and ankle of the λ prosthesis. The reaction forces generated in the prosthesis were performed on the ankle of the prosthesis, performing the summation of forces on the X and Y axes. The same analysis was then applied to the tibia of the prosthesis and the socket. The reaction force of the parts of the prosthesis varies according to the hip angles π, knee γ and ankle of the prosthesis λ. Therefore, it can be deduced that the maximum forces experienced by the ankle of the prosthesis is 933.6 N on the X axis and 2.160.5 N on the Y axis. Finally, it is calculated that the maximum forces experienced by the tibia and the socket of the transtibial prosthesis in high performance competitions is 3.266 N on the X axis and 1.357 N on the Y axis. In conclusion, it can be said that the performance of the cyclist depends on several physiological factors, linked to biomechanics of training. The influence of biomechanical factors such as aerodynamics, bicycle measurements, connecting rod length, or non-circular pedaling systems on the cyclist performance.

Keywords: biomechanics, dynamic model, paralympic cyclist, transtibial prosthesis

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Authors: Stefan Bradu, Daniel Siegel, Jameson Loyal, Andrea Leaf, Alana Kurtti, Usha Alapati, Jared Jagdeo

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Compared with all other variants of nodular melanoma, patients with polypoid nodular melanoma have the lowest 5-year survival rate. The pathophysiology and management of polypoid melanoma are scarcely reported in the literature. Although surgical excision is the cornerstone of melanoma management, treatment of polypoid melanoma is complicated by several negative prognostic factors, including early metastasis. This report demonstrates the successful treatment of a rapidly developing red nodular polypoid melanoma with metastasis using surgery and adjuvant nivolumab in a SARS-CoV-2-positive patient who delayed seeking care due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to detailing the successful treatment approach, the immunosuppressive effects of SARS-2-CoV and its possible contribution to the rapid progression of polypoid melanoma are discussed. This case highlights the complex challenges of melanoma diagnosis and management during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: covid-19, dermatology, immunotherapy, melanoma, nivolumab

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Authors: Daniel Fozer

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Limiting global warming to 1.5°C to the pre-industrial levels urges the application of efficient and sustainable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. Microalgae based biorefineries offer scalable solutions for the biofixation of CO2, where the produced biomass can be transformed into value added products by applying thermochemical processes. In this paper we report on the utilization of hydrochar as a blending component in hydrothermal gasification (HTG) process. The effects of blending ratio and hydrochar quality were investigated on the biogas yield and and composition. It is found that co-gasifying the hydrochar and the algae biomass can increase significantly the total gas yield and influence the biogas (H2, CH4, CO2, CO, C2H4, C2H6) composition. It is determined that the carbon conversion ratio, hydrogen and methane selectivity can be increased by influencing the fuel ratio of hydrochar via hydrothermal carbonization. In conclusion, it is found that increasing the synergy between hydrothermal technologies result in elevated conversion efficiency.

Keywords: biogas, CDR, Co-HTG, hydrochar, microalgae

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Authors: Valdir Moura, FranciléIa De Oliveira E. Silva, Erivelto Mercante, Ranieli Dos Anjos De Souza, Jerry Adriani Johann

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Several colonization projects were implemented in the Brazilian Legal Amazon in the 1970s and 1980s. Among all of these colonization projects, the most prominent were those with the Fishbone and Topographic models. Within this scope, the projects of settlements known as Anari and Machadinho were created, which stood out because they are contiguous areas with different models and structure of occupation and colonization. The main objective of this work was to evaluate the dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover (LULC) in two different colonization models, implanted in the State of Rondonia in the 1980s. The Fishbone and Topographic models were implanted in the Anari and Machadinho settlements respectively. The understanding of these two forms of occupation will help in future colonization programs of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. These settlements are contiguous areas with different occupancy structures. A 32-year Landsat time series (1984-2016) was used to evaluate the rates and trends in the LULC process in the different colonization models. In the different occupation models analyzed, the results showed a rapid loss of primary and secondary forests (deforestation), mainly due to the dynamics of use, established by the Agriculture/Pasture (A/P) relation and, with heavy dependence due to road construction.

Keywords: land-cover, deforestation, rate fragments, remote sensing, secondary succession

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Sijeong Jeong, Jaehyouk Choi

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The use of eccentrically braced frame (EBF) is increasing day by day as EBF possesses high elastic stiffness, stable inelastic response under cyclic lateral loading, and excellent ductility and energy dissipation capacity. The ductility and energy dissipation capacity of EBF depends on the active link beams. Recently, there are two types EBFs; these are conventional EBFs and EBFs with replaceable links. The conventional EBF has a disadvantage during maintenance in post-earthquake. The concept of removable active link beam in EBF is developed to overcome the limitation of the conventional EBF in post-earthquake. In this study, a replaceable link with reduced web section is introduced and design equations are suggested. In addition, nonlinear finite element analysis was conducted in order to evaluate the proposed links.

Keywords: EBFs, replaceable link, earthquake disaster, reduced section

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Authors: Mounira Laabidi, Rafik Zayani, Ridha Bouallegue, Daniel Roviras

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The Filter Bank multicarrier with Offset Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (FBMC-OQAM) has been introduced to overcome the poor spectral characteristics and the waste in both bandwidth and energy caused by the use of the cyclic prefix. However, the FBMC-OQAM signals suffer from the high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) problem. Due to the overlapping structure of the FBMC-OQAM signals, directly applying the PAPR reduction schemes conceived for the OFDM one turns out to be ineffective. In this paper, we address the problem of PAPR reduction for FBMC-OQAM systems by suggesting a new scheme based on an improved version of Active Constellation Extension scheme (ACE) of OFDM. The proposed scheme, named Rolling Window ACE, takes into consideration the overlapping naturally emanating from the FBMC-OQAM signals.

Keywords: ACE, FBMC, OQAM, OFDM, PAPR, rolling-window

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Authors: Mehdi Ghommem, Daniel Garcia, Nathan Collier, Victor Calo

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We develop a fast, user-friendly implementation of a potential flow solver based on the unsteady vortex lattice method (UVLM). The computational framework uses the Python programming language which has easy integration with the scripts requiring computationally-expensive operations written in Fortran. The mixed-language approach enables high performance in terms of solution time and high flexibility in terms of easiness of code adaptation to different system configurations and applications. This computational tool is intended to predict the unsteady aerodynamic behavior of multiple moving bodies (e.g., flapping wings, rotating blades, suspension bridges...) subject to an incoming air. We simulate different aerodynamic problems to validate and illustrate the usefulness and effectiveness of the developed computational tool.

Keywords: unsteady aerodynamics, numerical simulations, mixed-language approach, potential flow

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Authors: Daniel Mokatsanyane, Johnny Jansen Van Rensburg

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This paper is a concise introduction of the risk management on the water derivatives market. Water, a new commodity in the market, is one of the most important commodity on earth. As important to life and planet as crops, metals, and energy, none of them matters without water. This paper presents a brief overview of water as a tradable commodity via a new first of its kind futures contract on the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index (NQH2O) derivative instrument, TheGeneralised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) statistical model will be the used to measure the water price volatility of the instrument and its performance since it’s been traded. describe the main products and illustrate their usage in risk management and also discuss key challenges with modeling and valuation of water as a traded commodity and finally discuss how water derivatives may be taken as an alternative asset investment class.

Keywords: water derivatives, commodity market, nasdaq veles california water Index (NQH2O, water price, risk management

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Authors: Daniel Nelson, Valeria La Saponara

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Material extrusion is an additive manufacturing modality that continues to show great promise in the ability to create low-cost, highly intricate, and exceedingly useful structural elements. As more capable and versatile filament materials are devised, and the resolution of manufacturing systems continues to increase, the need to understand and predict manufacturing-induced warping will gain ever greater importance. The following study presents an in situ remote sensing and data analysis construct that allows for the in situ mapping and quantification of surface displacements induced by residual stresses on a specified test structure. This proof-of-concept experimental process shows that it is possible to provide designers and manufacturers with insight into the manufacturing parameters that lead to the manifestation of these deformations and a greater understanding of the behavior of these warping events over the course of the manufacturing process.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, deformation, digital image correlation, fused filament fabrication, residual stress, warping

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Authors: Fernanda S. Oliveira

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The architectural science of lighting has been mainly concerned with technical aspects and has tended to ignore the psychophysical. There is a growing evidence that adopting passive design solutions may contribute to higher satisfaction. This is even more important in countries with higher solar radiation, which should take advantage of favourable daylighting conditions. However, in art museums, the same light that stimulates vision can also cause permanent damage to the exhibits. Not only the visitors want to see the objects, but also to understand their nature and the artist’s intentions. This paper examines the hypothesis that the more varied and exciting the lighting (and particularly the daylight) in museums rooms, over space and time, the more likely it is that visitors will stay longer, enjoy their experience and be willing to return. This question is not often considered in museums that privilege artificial lighting neglecting the various qualities of daylight other than its capacity to illuminate spaces. The findings of this paper show that daylight plays an important role in museum design, affecting how visitors perceive the exhibition space, as well as contributing to their overall enjoyment in the museum. Rooms with high luminance means were considered more pleasant (r=.311, p<.05) and cheerful (r=.349, p<.05). Lighting conditions also have a direct effect on the phenomenon of museum fatigue with the overall room quality showing an effect on how tired visitors reported to be (r=.421, p<.01). The control and distribution of daylight in museums can therefore contribute to create pleasant conditions for learning, entertainment and amusement, so that visitors are willing to return.

Keywords: daylight, comfort, museums, luminance, visitor

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Authors: Daniel Pastor, Hyo-Sang Shin

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This paper presents a novel method to use optical flow navigation for long-term navigation. Unlike standard SLAM approaches for augmented reality, OFLAAM is designed for Micro Air Vehicles (MAV). It uses an optical flow camera pointing downwards, an IMU and a monocular camera pointing frontwards. That configuration avoids the expensive mapping and tracking of the 3D features. It only maps these features in a vocabulary list by a localization module to tackle the loss of the navigation estimation. That module, based on the well-established algorithm DBoW2, will be also used to close the loop and allow long-term navigation in confined areas. That combination of high-speed optical flow navigation with a low rate localization algorithm allows fully autonomous navigation for MAV, at the same time it reduces the overall computational load. This framework is implemented in ROS (Robot Operating System) and tested attached to a laptop. A representative scenarios is used to analyse the performance of the system.

Keywords: vision, UAV, navigation, SLAM

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Authors: Ederaldo Godoy Junior, Ricardo O. Jesus, Pedro H. Jesus, José R. Camargo, Jorge Y. Oliveira, Nicoly Milhardo Lourenço

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This work aimed at the comparative study of the quality and quantity of biogas produced by archaea strain Methanothrix soehngenii operating in different versions of anaerobic digesters upflow sludge bed in the brewery wastewater treatment in Brazil in the tropical region. Four types of UASB digesters were studied made of different geometries and materials which are: a UASB IC steel 20 meters high; a circular UASB steel 6 meters high; an UASB reinforced concrete lined with geomembrane PEAB with 6 meters high; and finally a UASB plug flow comprising two UASB in serious rotomolded HDPE 6 meters high.Observed clearly that the biogas produced in the digester UASB steel H2S concentrations had values lower than the HDPE. With respect to efficiency in short time, the UASB IC showed the best results to absorb overloads, as the UASB circular steel showed an efficiency of 90% removal of the organic load. The UASB system plug flow in HDPE showed the lowest cost of deployment, and its efficiency in removing the organic load was 80%.

Keywords: biogas, achaeas, UASB, Brewery effluent

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Authors: Jorge A. Ruiz-Vanoye, Ocotlán Díaz-Parra, Alejandro Fuentes-Penna, Daniel Vélez-Díaz, Edith Olaco García

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In this paper, we present the use of the discriminant analysis to select evolutionary algorithms that better solve instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows. We use indicators as independent variables to obtain the classification criteria, and the best algorithm from the generic genetic algorithm (GA), random search (RS), steady-state genetic algorithm (SSGA), and sexual genetic algorithm (SXGA) as the dependent variable for the classification. The discriminant classification was trained with classic instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows obtained from the Solomon benchmark. We obtained a classification of the discriminant analysis of 66.7%.

Keywords: Intelligent Transportation Systems, data-mining techniques, evolutionary algorithms, discriminant analysis, machine learning

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Authors: Daniel Klimovský

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Slovakia belongs to the most fragmented countries if one looks at its local government structure. The Slovak central governments implemented both broad devolution and fiscal decentralization some decades ago. However, neither territorial consolidation nor size categorization of local competences and powers has been implemented yet. Taking this fact into account, it is clear that the local governments are challenged not only by their citizens as customers but also by effectiveness as well as efficiency of delivered services. The paper is focused on behavior of the local governments in Slovakia and their approaches towards other local partners, including other local governments. Analysis of set of interviews shows that inter-municipal cooperation is the most common local partnership in Slovakia, but due to diversity of the local governments, this kind of cooperation leads to both intended and unintended outcomes. While in many cases the local governments are more efficient as well as effective in delivery of local services thanks to inter-municipal cooperation, there are many cases where inter-municipal cooperation fails, and it brings rather questionable or even negative outcomes.

Keywords: local governments, local partnerships, inter-municipal cooperation, delivery of local services

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Authors: Juliana da Silva Cardoso, Cláudia Correia, Rita Gomes, Carolina Fraga, Inês Cascais, Sara Monteiro, Beatriz Teixeira, Sandra Ribeiro, Carolina Andrade, Cláudia Oliveira, Diana Gonzaga, Catarina Prior, Inês Vaz Matos

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The average daily screen time (ST) has been increasing in children, even at young ages. This seems to be associated with a higher incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders, and as the time of exposure increases, the greater is the functional impact. This study aims to compare the daily ST of toddlers and preschoolers previously and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire was applied by telephone to parents/caregivers of children between 1 and 5 years old, followed up at 4 primary care units belonging to the Group of Primary Health Care Centers of Western Porto, Portugal. 520 children were included: 52.9% male, mean age 39.4 ± 13.9 months. The mean age of first exposure to screens was 13.9 ± 8.0 months, and most of the children were exposed to more than one screen daily. Considering the WHO recommendations, before the COVID-19 pandemic, 385 (74.0%) and 408 (78.5%) children had excessive ST during the week and the weekend, respectively; during the lockdown, these values increased to 495 (95.2%) and 482 (92.7%). Maternal education and both the child's median age and the median age of first exposure to screens had a statistically significant association with excessive ST, with OR 0.2 (p = 0.03, CI 95% 0.07-0.86), OR 1.1 (p = 0.01, 95% CI 1.05-1.14) and OR 0.9 (p = 0.05, 95% CI 0. 87-0.98), respectively. Most children in this sample had a higher than recommended ST, which increased with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. These results are worrisome and point to the need for urgent intervention.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, preschoolers, screen time, toddlers

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Authors: Fernanda Conforto de Oliveira

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a central role in global financial governance as the world’s leading crisis lender. Its practice of conditional lending – conditioning loans on the implementation of economic policy adjustments – is the primary lever by which the institution interacts with and influences the policy choices of member countries and has been a key topic of interest to scholars and public opinion. However, empirical evidence about the economic and (geo)political determinants of IMF lending behavior remains inconclusive, and no model that explains IMF policies has been identified. This research moves beyond panel analysis to focus on financial negotiations for the first IMF programs in Argentina and Brazil in the early post-war period. It seeks to understand why negotiations achieved distinct objectives: Argentinean officials cooperated and complied with IMF policies, whereas their Brazilian counterparts hesitated. Using qualitative and automated text analysis, this paper analyses the hypothesis about whether a differential IMF treatment could help to explain these distinct outcomes. This paper contributes to historical studies on IMF-Latin America relations and the broader literature in international policy economy about IMF policies.

Keywords: international monetary fund, international history, financial history, Latin American economic history, natural language processing, sentiment analysis

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Authors: C. Caçador, M. J. Reis Lima, J. Oliveira, M. J. Veiga, M. Teixeira Veríssimo, F. Ramos, M. C. Castilho, E. Teixeira-Lemos

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In the present study we evaluated the nutritional status of 214 institutionalized elderly residents of both genders, aged 65 years and older of 11 care homes located in the district of Viseu (center of Portugal). The evaluation was based on anthropometric measurements and the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) score. The mean age of the subjects was 82.3 ± 6.1 years-old. Most of the elderly residents were female (72.0%). The majority had 4 years of formal education (51.9%) and was widowed (74.3%) or married (14.0%). Men presented a mean age of 81.2±8.5 years-old, weight 69.3±14.5 kg and BMI 25.33±6.5 kg/m2. In women, the mean age was 84.5±8.2 years-old, weight 61.2±14.7 kg and BMI 27.43±5.6 kg/m2. The evaluation of the nutritional status using the MNA score showed that 24.0% of the residents show a risk of undernutrition and 76.0% of them were well nourished. There was a high prevalence of obese (24.8%) and overweight residents (33.2%) according to the BMI. 7.5% were considered underweight. We also found that according to their waist circumference measurements 88.3% of the residents were at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 64.0% of them presented very high risk for CVD (WC≥88 cm for women and WC ≥102 cm for men). The present study revealed the coexistence of a dual form of malnutrition (undernourished and overweight) among the institutionalized Portuguese concomitantly with an excess of abdominal adiposity. The high prevalence of residents at high risk for CVD should not be overlooked. Given the vulnerability of the group of institutionalized elderly, our study highlights the importance of the classification of nutritional status based on both instruments: the BMI and the MNA.

Keywords: nutritional satus, MNA, BMI, elderly

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Authors: Gizelle K. Vianna, Gabriel V. Cunha, Gustavo S. Oliveira

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Foliage diseases in plants can cause a reduction in both quality and quantity of agricultural production. Intelligent detection of plant diseases is an essential research topic as it may help monitoring large fields of crops by automatically detecting the symptoms of foliage diseases. This work investigates ways to recognize the late blight disease from the analysis of tomato digital images, collected directly from the field. A pair of multilayer perceptron neural network analyzes the digital images, using data from both RGB and HSL color models, and classifies each image pixel. One neural network is responsible for the identification of healthy regions of the tomato leaf, while the other identifies the injured regions. The outputs of both networks are combined to generate the final classification of each pixel from the image and the pixel classes are used to repaint the original tomato images by using a color representation that highlights the injuries on the plant. The new images will have only green, red or black pixels, if they came from healthy or injured portions of the leaf, or from the background of the image, respectively. The system presented an accuracy of 97% in detection and estimation of the level of damage on the tomato leaves caused by late blight.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, digital image processing, pattern recognition, phytosanitary

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Authors: Daniel Martinez, Tim de Leeuw, Stefan Haefliger

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The challenges of managing a large and geographically dispersed R&D organization have been further increasing during the past years, concentrating on the leverage of a geo-graphically dispersed body of knowledge in an efficient and effective manner. In order to reduce complexity and improve performance, firms introduce product modularity as one key element for global R&D network teams to develop their products and projects in collaboration. However, empirical studies on the effects of product modularity on innovation performance are really scant. Furthermore, some researchers have suggested that product modularity promotes innovation performance, while others argue that it inhibits innovation performance. This research fills this gap by investigating the impact of product modularity on various dimensions of innovation performance, i.e. effectiveness and efficiency. By constructing the theoretical framework, this study suggests that that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between product modularity and innovation performance. Moreover, this research work suggests that the optimum of innovation performance efficiency will be at a higher level than innovation performance effectiveness at a given product modularity level.

Keywords: modularity, innovation performance, networks, R&D, collaboration

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Authors: Fulya Gokalp Yavuz, Mark Daniel Ward

Abstract:

This study focuses on a contemporary and inevitable topic of Data Science and its exemplary application for early career building: Big Data and Leaving Learning Community (LLC). ‘Academia’ and ‘Industry’ have a common sense on the importance of Big Data. However, both of them are in a threat of missing the training on this interdisciplinary area. Some traditional teaching doctrines are far away being effective on Data Science. Practitioners needs some intuition and real-life examples how to apply new methods to data in size of terabytes. We simply explain the scope of Data Science training and exemplified its early stage application with LLC, which is a National Science Foundation (NSF) founded project under the supervision of Prof. Ward since 2014. Essentially, we aim to give some intuition for professors, researchers and practitioners to combine data science tools for comprehensive real-life examples with the guides of mentees’ feedback. As a result of discussing mentoring methods and computational challenges of Big Data, we intend to underline its potential with some more realization.

Keywords: Big Data, computation, mentoring, training

Procedia PDF Downloads 326

Authors: Daniel Azizyan, Marina Vardanyan, Astghik Dallakyan

Abstract:

The objective of this literature review is to bring valuable and much-needed insight into Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among military personnel. As the issues regarding war veterans who suffer from PTSD become more and more widespread, the task of finding possible solutions that would provide alternative approaches to existing methods being used today becomes more relevant than ever. By analyzing the previous applications of VRET, this literature review covers the state of the research done currently on the topic, reviews the known information while identifying the main problems, and aims to use missed opportunities and find potential solutions. It provides the answers to the most relevant questions concerning VRET and leads to important conclusions in the hope of making the technology more practical, widespread, and effective.

Keywords: military PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, prolonged exposure, virtual reality exposure therapy, VRE

Procedia PDF Downloads 73

Authors: Eduardo Padilla, Luis Daniel Rodriguez, Ivan Sanchez, Angelica Sofia Go

Abstract:

The synthesis and application of metallic nanoparticles have increased in recent years. Biological methods go beyond the chemical and physical synthesis that is expensive and not friendly to the environment. Therefore, in this study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized biologically in an environmentally friendly way by Handroanthus chrysanthus flower aqueous extract (AgNPs) that contains phytochemicals capable of reducing silver nitrate. AgNPs were characterized visually by UV-visible spectroscopy and TEM. The antimicrobial activity of the AgNPs was tested by determining the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and minimal bactericidal concentration (MBC) in Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus strains AgNPs showed potent antimicrobial activity against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. MIC and MBC values were as low as 41.6, and 83.2 ug/mL using AgNPs biosynthesized by H. chrysanthus flower extract. This nanoparticle could be the basis for the formulation of disinfectants for use in the food and pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: antimicrobial, silver nanoparticles, flower extract, Handroanthus

Procedia PDF Downloads 68