Protein recovery, separation and purification: selection of optimal techniques using an expert system

The paper discusses the utilization of new techniques ot select processes for protein recovery, separation and purification. It describesa rational approach that uses fundamental databases of proteins molecules to simplify the complex problem of choosing high resolution separation methods for multi component mixtures. It examines the role of modern computer techniques to help solving these questions.

A feature-based object-oriented expert system to model and support product design

In this paper a computer program to model and support product design is presented. The product is represented through a hierarchical structure that allows the user to navigate across the product’s components, and it aims at facilitating each step of the detail design process. A graphical interface was also developed, which shows visually to the user the contents of the product structure. Features are used as building blocks for the parts that compose the product, and object-oriented methodology was used as a means to implement the product structure. Finally, an expert system was also implemented, whose knowledge base rules help the user design a product that meets design and manufacturing requirements.

Fuzzy expert system in the prediction of neonatal resuscitation

In view of the importance of anticipating the occurrence of critical situations in medicine, we propose the use of a fuzzy expert system to predict the need for advanced neonatal resuscitation efforts in the delivery room. This system relates the maternal medical, obstetric and neonatal characteristics to the clinical conditions of the newborn, providing a risk measurement of need of advanced neonatal resuscitation measures. It is structured as a fuzzy composition developed on the basis of the subjective perception of danger of nine neonatologists facing 61 antenatal and intrapartum clinical situations which provide a degree of association with the risk of occurrence of perinatal asphyxia. The resulting relational matrix describes the association between clinical factors and risk of perinatal asphyxia. Analyzing the inputs of the presence or absence of all 61 clinical factors, the system returns the rate of risk of perinatal asphyxia as output. A prospectively collected series of 304 cases of perinatal care was analyzed to ascertain system performance. The fuzzy expert system presented a sensitivity of 76.5% and specificity of 94.8% in the identification of the need for advanced neonatal resuscitation measures, considering a cut-off value of 5 on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.93. The identification of risk situations plays an important role in the planning of health care. These preliminary results encourage us to develop further studies and to refine this model, which is intended to implement an auxiliary system able to help health care staff to make decisions in perinatal care.

The use of expert systems on the differential diagnosis of urinary incontinence

The differential diagnosis of urinary incontinence classes is sometimes difficult to establish. As a rule, only the results of urodynamic testing allow an accurate diagnosis. However, this exam is not always feasible, because it requires special equipment, and also trained personnel to lead and interpret the exam. Some expert systems have been developed to assist health professionals in this field. Therefore, the aims of this paper are to present the definition of Artificial Intelligence; to explain what Expert System and System for Decision Support are and its application in the field of health and to discuss some expert systems for differential diagnosis of urinary incontinence. It is concluded that expert systems may be useful not only for teaching purposes, but also as decision support in daily clinical practice. Despite this, for several reasons, health professionals usually hesitate to use the computer expert system to support their decision making process.

A programme for computer aided identification of Phlebotomine sandflies of the Americas (CIPA): presentation and check-list of American species

The CIPA programme is a collaborative project including two entomologists from France and seven South and Central America countries. Its objective is the development of an expert system for computer aided identification of phlebotomine sandflies from the Americas. It also includes the formation of data bases for bibliographic, taxonomic and biogeographic data. Participant consensus on taxonomic prerequisites, standardization in bibliographic data collections and selection of descriptive variables for the final programme has been established through continous communication among participants and annual meetings. The adopted check-list of American sandflies presented here includes 386 specific taxa, ordered into genera and 28 sub-genera or species groups.

Preventive diagnosis of dairy cow lameness

This research aimed to develop a Fuzzy inference based on expert system to help preventing lameness in dairy cattle. Hoof length, nutritional parameters and floor material properties (roughness) were used to build the Fuzzy inference system. The expert system architecture was defined using Unified Modelling Language (UML). Data were collected in a commercial dairy herd using two different subgroups (H1 and H2), in order to validate the Fuzzy inference functions. The numbers of True Positive (TP), False Positive (FP), True Negative (TN), and False Negative (FN) responses were used to build the classifier system up, after an established gold standard comparison. A Lesion Incidence Possibility (LIP) developed function indicates the chances of a cow becoming lame. The obtained lameness percentage in H1 and H2 was 8.40% and 1.77%, respectively. The system estimated a Lesion Incidence Possibility (LIP) of 5.00% and 2.00% in H1 and H2, respectively. The system simulation presented 3.40% difference from real cattle lameness data for H1, while for H2, it was 0.23%; indicating the system efficiency in decision-making.

Nursing diagnoses and outcomes related to the circulatory-system terms (ICNP®) represented in an ontology

The aim of the present study was to develop titles of Nursing Diagnoses and Outcomes (ND/NO) through the relationship between the terms of the Focus axis, limited to the Circulatory System Process, and the terms of other ICNP® axes and to integrate these terms into an ontology. Titles were developed linking 17 terms of the focus axis, which were evaluated by expert nurses in five Brazilian cities. Titles whose use concordance was above 0.80 were included in the ontology. In total, 89 titles for ND/NO were supported in the literature, and 19 were not supported; 37 were assessed as eligible for use in healthcare practice and were included in the ontology. The construction of ND/NO titles based on the ICNP® and using a formal representation of knowledge is a task that requires deepening concepts used for nursing and adequate classification revisions. The elaborated titles will facilitate the composition of diagnostics that are more consistent with practice.

Evaluation of bursal lymphoid depletion: comparison between the conventional histology method and digital lymphocyte depletion evaluation system

Abstract: Fifty-five bursa of Fabricius (BF) were evaluated by optical microscopy for three different avian histopathologists (H1, H3 and H4) to determine the degree of lymphoid depletion. One histologist evaluated the same slides at two different times (H1 and H2) with four-months interval between the observations. The same BFs were evaluated using the system of Digital Lymphocyte Depletion Evaluation (ADDL), being performed by three differents operators of the system, not histopathologists. The results showed was a significant difference between the histopathologists and between the scores established by the same expert (H1 and H2). However, there were not significant differences between the scores with the ADDL system, obtained using ADDL. The results make clear the fragility of the subjective lymphocyte depletion score classification by the traditional histologic method, while the ADDL system proves to be more appropriated for the assessment of the lymphoid loss in the BF.

Decision support system for the diagnosis of schizophrenia disorders

Clinical decision support systems are useful tools for assisting physicians to diagnose complex illnesses. Schizophrenia is a complex, heterogeneous and incapacitating mental disorder that should be detected as early as possible to avoid a most serious outcome. These artificial intelligence systems might be useful in the early detection of schizophrenia disorder. The objective of the present study was to describe the development of such a clinical decision support system for the diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SADDESQ). The development of this system is described in four stages: knowledge acquisition, knowledge organization, the development of a computer-assisted model, and the evaluation of the system's performance. The knowledge was extracted from an expert through open interviews. These interviews aimed to explore the expert's diagnostic decision-making process for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. A graph methodology was employed to identify the elements involved in the reasoning process. Knowledge was first organized and modeled by means of algorithms and then transferred to a computational model created by the covering approach. The performance assessment involved the comparison of the diagnoses of 38 clinical vignettes between an expert and the SADDESQ. The results showed a relatively low rate of misclassification (18-34%) and a good performance by SADDESQ in the diagnosis of schizophrenia, with an accuracy of 66-82%. The accuracy was higher when schizophreniform disorder was considered as the presence of schizophrenia disorder. Although these results are preliminary, the SADDESQ has exhibited a satisfactory performance, which needs to be further evaluated within a clinical setting.

Climate governance in an international system under conservative hegemony: the role of major powers

In the last five years, climate change has been established as a central civilizational driver of our time. As a result of this development, the most diversified social processes - as well as the fields of science which study them - have had their dynamics altered. In International Relations, this double challenge could be explained as follows: 1) in empirical terms, climate change imposes a deepening of cooperation levels on the international community, considering the global common character of the atmosphere; and 2) to International Relations as a discipline, climate change demands from the scientific community a conceptual review of the categories designed to approach the development of global climate governance. The goal of this article is to discuss in both conceptual and empirical terms the structure of global climate change governance, through an exploratory research, aiming at identifying the key elements that allow understanding its dynamics. To do so, we rely on the concept of climate powers. This discussion is grounded in the following framework: we now live in an international system under conservative hegemony that is unable to properly respond to the problems of interdependence, among which - and mainly -, the climate issue.

Between system maker and privileges taker: the role of China in the Greater Mekong Sub-region

Utilizing China's leadership projects in the Great Mekong Sub-Region (GMS) as a case study, this paper aims to investigate whether China qualifies as an international leader. This work argues that its geographic position and economic rise allow China to be a "system maker and privilege taker," which is a dual role forming in economic-political relations in the GMS in the last ten years. China is among major driving forces to set up an economic zone in GMS. Growing Chinese regional power is intimately related to the creation of various hubs connecting regional transportation, communication and energy systems that foster the economic development of this region. However, China also proves dark sides of rising powers which take advantage of their privileges to gain benefits. As a "system maker" with its own position and capability, China has notably benefited from building hydropower systems. More importantly, while China is pursuing its benefits and privileges, its hydropower projects have caused some negative effects for the ecosystem in the region. The inflation of dam constructions in both China and GMS countries is raising concerns about using natural resources of the Mekong River. Our concluding part addresses the pressing need to start a serious discussion on the balance between national interests and regional solidarity within the formulation of Chinese foreign policy in GMS.

Environmental issues and international relations, a new global (dis)order - the role of International Relations in promoting a concerted international system

Is it possible to talk about the rise of a new global (dis)order founded on the challenges posed by environmental issues? Through the review of the state of the art on the subject, this article analyzes the growing importance of the environment, and natural resources in particular, in international relations; and aims to raise awareness among International Relations scholars to the potential positive impact of the development of the discipline in integration with global environmental change studies.

Evaluation of respiratory parameters in minimally processed lettuce grown under organic or conventional system

The increased preference for minimally processed vegetables has been attributed to the health benefits associated with fresh produce and the demand for ready-to-eat salads. In this paper, lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) was evaluated for the effects of different cropping systems on the respiratory properties. Lettuce was packaged in low density polyethylene bags and stored in a refrigerator at 4 ºC. The concentration of carbon dioxide and oxygen inside the package was monitored during the storage at zero, three, six, eight, ten and twelve days by gas chromatography. Dry matter variation was measured gravimetrically up to day fourteen of storage. Values of respiratory rate for conventional lettuce increased from day 1 to 3 and remained low, while respiratory rate of the organic lettuce increased three-fold up to day 8, stabilizing at a high level. Variation in dry matter during storage also resulted from differences between the two cultivation systems. The highest content of dry matter was achieved by organic lettuce.

Lime and fertilizer recommendation system for coconut trees

Fertilizer recommendation to most agricultural crops is based on response curves. Such curves are constructed from field experimental data, obtained for a particular condition and may not be reliable to be applied to other regions. The aim of this study was to develop a Lime and Fertilizer Recommendation System for Coconut Crop based on the nutritional balance. The System considers the expected productivity and plant nutrient use efficiency to estimate nutrient demand, and effective rooting layer, soil nutrient availability, as well as any other nutrient input to estimate the nutrient supply. Comparing the nutrient demand with the nutrient supply the System defines the nutrient balance. If the balance for a given nutrient is negative, lime and, or, fertilization is recommended. On the other hand, if the balance is positive, no lime or fertilizer is needed. For coconut trees, the fertilization regime is divided in three stages: fertilization at the planting spot, band fertilization and fertilization at the production phase. The data set for the development of the System for coconut trees was obtained from the literature. The recommendations generated by the System were compared to those derived from recommendation tables used for coconut crop in Brazil. The main differences between the two procedures were for the P rate applied in the planting hole, which was higher in the proposed System because the tables do not pay heed to the pit volume, whereas the N and K rates were lower. The crop demand for K is very high, and the rates recommended by the System are superior to the table recommendations for the formation and initial production stage. The fertilizer recommendations by the System are higher for the phase of coconut tree growth as compared to the production phase, because greater amount of biomass is produced in the first phase.