Parallel texts alignment

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

WebLabs in education

Remote Labs are an emergent educational resource in Engineering, which addresses the remote delivery of practical contents, i. e. remote experiments, through the web. This resource may either be used as a support for e-learning courses in Engineering or Science, in the cases where on-campus lab work is not possible, or as a complement to face-to-face lab classes, allowing the students to repeat a given experiment on a remote fashion, without time restrictions.

ECG-based biometrics: A real time classification approach

Behavioral biometrics is one of the areas with growing interest within the biosignal research community. A recent trend in the field is ECG-based biometrics, where electrocardiographic (ECG) signals are used as input to the biometric system. Previous work has shown this to be a promising trait, with the potential to serve as a good complement to other existing, and already more established modalities, due to its intrinsic characteristics. In this paper, we propose a system for ECG biometrics centered on signals acquired at the subject's hand. Our work is based on a previously developed custom, non-intrusive sensing apparatus for data acquisition at the hands, and involved the pre-processing of the ECG signals, and evaluation of two classification approaches targeted at real-time or near real-time applications. Preliminary results show that this system leads to competitive results both for authentication and identification, and further validate the potential of ECG signals as a complementary modality in the toolbox of the biometric system designer.

Structuring and moodleing a course: case studies at the polytechnic of Porto - School of engineering

This work presents a comparative study covering four different courses lectured at the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering, in respect to the usage of a particular Learning Management System, i.e. Moodle, and its impact on students' results. Even though positive correlation factors exist, e.g. between the number of Moodle accesses versus the final exam grade obtained by each student, the explanation behind it may not be straightforward. Mapping this particular factor to course numbers reveals that the quality of the resources might be preponderant and not only their quantity. This paper also addresses teachers who used this platform as a complement to their courses (b-learning) and identifies some particular issues they should be aware in order to potentiate students' engagement and learning.

Engaging students by moodleing a course? Case studies at the Polytechnic of Porto–School of Engineering

This work presents a comparative study covering four different courses lectured at the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering, regarding the usage of a particular Learning Management System, i.e. Moodle, and its impact on students' results. This study addresses teachers who used this platform as a complement to their courses (b-learning) and identifies some particular issues in order to potentiate students' engagement and learning. Even though positive correlation factors exist, e.g. between the number of Moodle accesses versus the final exam grade obtained by each student, the explanation behind it may not be straightforward. Mapping this particular factor to course numbers reveals that the quality of the resources might be preponderant and not only their quantity. These results point to the fact that some dynamic resources might enlarge students' engagement.

Aspectos clínicos e sorológicos de 47 pacientes com paracoccidioidomicose tratados pela anfotericina B

In the present study, clinic and serologic aspects of 47 paracoccidioidomycosis patients were reviewed. The clinic-radiologie-laboratorial data of each patient were obtained from the medical chart before, during and after therapy with Amphotericin B. The age of the patients ranged between 13 to 50 years; the ratio male: female was 10:1. The most frequently associated diseases were alcoholism and tabagism; tuberculosis was present in 14.2% of the cases. Most patients came from Botucatu of adjacent towns (central area of the State of São Paulo). Cough with sputum production, dyspnea and anorexia were the most frequent clinic manifestations. All 47 patients, but 5 presented pulmonary involvement which showed the radiologic pattern of interstitial exudate nodular type and fibrocicatritial lesions in 85.7%. There was associated emphysema in 37.7% of the patients. Blood urea, creatinin and kaliemia increased during therapy with Amphotericin B. Clinic-laboratorial follow-up showed electrocardiographic changes in 13, hypertension in 9 and hyperreactivity in Thorn test in 1 patient. Complement fixation was the best serologic test for monitoring patients with paracoccidioidomycosis. Incomplete dosage of Amphotericin B led to therapeutic ineffectivenes.

Clustering de dados biomédicos com algoritmos baseados em critérios entrópicos

A procura de padrões nos dados de modo a formar grupos é conhecida como aglomeração de dados ou clustering, sendo uma das tarefas mais realizadas em mineração de dados e reconhecimento de padrões. Nesta dissertação é abordado o conceito de entropia e são usados algoritmos com critérios entrópicos para fazer clustering em dados biomédicos. O uso da entropia para efetuar clustering é relativamente recente e surge numa tentativa da utilização da capacidade que a entropia possui de extrair da distribuição dos dados informação de ordem superior, para usá-la como o critério na formação de grupos (clusters) ou então para complementar/melhorar algoritmos existentes, numa busca de obtenção de melhores resultados. Alguns trabalhos envolvendo o uso de algoritmos baseados em critérios entrópicos demonstraram resultados positivos na análise de dados reais. Neste trabalho, exploraram-se alguns algoritmos baseados em critérios entrópicos e a sua aplicabilidade a dados biomédicos, numa tentativa de avaliar a adequação destes algoritmos a este tipo de dados. Os resultados dos algoritmos testados são comparados com os obtidos por outros algoritmos mais “convencionais" como o k-médias, os algoritmos de spectral clustering e um algoritmo baseado em densidade.

Congenital cytomegalovirus infection: occurrence in two socioeconomically distinct populations of a developing country

In São Paulo, Brazil, between November 1980 and July 1982, 1614 newborns of middle socioeconomic background and 1156 newborns of low socioeconomic background were examined for the occurrence of congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection by isolation of virus from urine samples or detection of specific anti-CMV IgM in umbilical cord serum tested by immunofluorescence. In the low socioeconomic population prevalence of CMV complement-fixing antibodies in mothers was 84.4%(151/179) and the incidence of congenital infection assessed by virus isolation 0.98% (5/508), as compared with 0.46% (3/648) in the group of newborns tested by detection of specific anti-CMV IgM in umbilical cord-serum. In middle socioeconomic level population prevalence of CMV complement-fixing antibodies in mothers was 66.5% (284/427) and the incidence of CMV congenital infection was 0.39% (2/518) in the group of newborns screened by virus isolation and 0.18% (2/1096) in the group tested by detection of specific anti-CMV IgM. In the present study none of the 12 congenitally infected newborns presented clinical apparent disease at birth.

Análise do mercado de serviços de regulação de frequência secundária e terciária no sistema eléctrico português

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica Ramo Energia

Antigen characterization of vector-borne and cultured metacyclic trypomastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi

Metacyclic trypomastigotes ol the CL strain of Trypanosoma cruzi obtained from triatomid vectors and from axenic cultures were comparatively analysed as to their antigen make-up and immunogenic characteristics. They were found to be similar by the various parameters examined. Thus, sera of mice immunized with either one of the two metacyclic types precipitated a 82Kd surface protein from 131I-labeled culture metacyclics. Sera of mice protected against acute T. cruzi infection by immunization with killed culture metacyclics of a different strain (G) recognized, by immunoblotting, a 77Kd protein in both types of CL strain metacyclics. A monoclonal antibody raised against G strain metacyclics, and specific for metacyclic stages of this strain, reacted with both CL strain metacyclic types. Both metacyclic forms were similarly Iysed by various anti-T. cruzi sera, in a complement-mediated reaction.

Immunopathologic studies in myocardial biopsies of patients with Chagas' disease and idiopathic cardiomyopathy

Right ventricular endomyocardial biopsies were studied in 30 patients, 15 with myocardiopathy from chronic Chagas'disease and 15 with idiopathic congestive myocardiopathy; five other myocardial samples were taken at necropsies of patients with chronic Chagas' disease. The authors tried to establish by means of direct immunofluorescence techniques whether there were immunoglobulins G, A and M, fibrinogen and C3 complement deposition in the myocardium; only one of these 30 patients exhibited a positive reaction to IgG, it was a patient with idiopathic congestive myocardiopathy. All fragments from patients with Chagas' disease showed no response to any of the fluorescent conjugates. These findings do not support the idea that anti-myoeardial antibodies have pathogenic importance in the evolution of dilated or chagasic myocardiopathies.

People counting system using existing surveillance video camera

The Casa da Música Foundation, responsible for the management of Casa da Música do Porto building, has the need to obtain statistical data related to the number of building’s visitors. This information is a valuable tool for the elaboration of periodical reports concerning the success of this cultural institution. For this reason it was necessary to develop a system capable of returning the number of visitors for a requested period of time. This represents a complex task due to the building’s unique architectural design, characterized by very large doors and halls, and the sudden large number of people that pass through them in moments preceding and proceeding the different activities occurring in the building. To achieve the technical solution for this challenge, several image processing methods, for people detection with still cameras, were first studied. The next step was the development of a real time algorithm, using OpenCV libraries and computer vision concepts,to count individuals with the desired accuracy. This algorithm includes the scientific and technical knowledge acquired in the study of the previous methods. The themes developed in this thesis comprise the fields of background maintenance, shadow and highlight detection, and blob detection and tracking. A graphical interface was also built, to help on the development, test and tunning of the proposed system, as a complement to the work. Furthermore, tests to the system were also performed, to certify the proposed techniques against a set of limited circumstances. The results obtained revealed that the algorithm was successfully applied to count the number of people in complex environments with reliable accuracy.

Integração Intranet – Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0 Via Pro/Web.Link

Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, Área de Especialização em Arquiteturas, Sistemas e Redes

Infectivity of amastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi

The infectivity amastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi, isolated from the supernatant of the J774G8 macrophage-like cell line infected with trypomastigotes to normal macrophages in vitro was tested. After a period of 1 h of T. cruzi-macrophage interaction about 2% of the mouse peritoneal macrophages had ingested amastigotes. In contrast 12% of the macrophages had ingested epimastigotes. Treatment of the amastigotes with trypsin did not interfere with their ingestion by macrophages. Once inside the macrophages the amastigotes divided and after some days transformed into trypomastigotes. When i.p. inoculated into mice the amastigotes were highly infective, inducing high levels of parasitaemia and tissue parasitism. As previously described for trypomastigotes, amastigotes were not lysed when incubated in the presence of fresh guinea-pig serum. Contrasting with what has been described for trypomastigotes, the resistance of amastigotes to complement-mediated lysis persisted after treatment with trypsin.

Molluscum contagiosum: serology and electron microscopy findings in twenty one patients

Twenty one cases of molluscum contagiosum virus disease were collected for electron microscopical and serological tests. Molluscum virus was detected in the crust, inside the vacuoles formed in the keratinocytes cells. The patients developed specific antibodies to the virus detected by complement fixation test.