Personalised Advertising Supported by Agents

This paper reports the development of a B2B platform for the personalization of the publicity transmitted during the program intervals. The platform as a whole must ensure that the intervals are filled with ads compatible with the profile, context and expressed interests of the viewers. The platform acts as an electronic marketplace for advertising agencies (content producer companies) and multimedia content providers (content distribution companies). The companies, once registered at the platform, are represented by agents who negotiate automatically the price of the interval timeslots according to the specified price range and adaptation behaviour. The candidate ads for a given viewer interval are selected through a matching mechanism between ad, viewer and the current context (program being watched) profiles. The overall architecture of the platform consists of a multiagent system organized into three layers consisting of: (i) interface agents that interact with companies; (ii) enterprise agents that model the companies, and (iii) delegate agents that negotiate a specific ad or interval. The negotiation follows a variant of the Iterated Contract Net Interaction Protocol (ICNIP) and is based on the price/s offered by the advertising agencies to occupy the viewer’s interval.

An Intelligent Distributed System for Environmental Management

Environmental management is a complex task. The amount and heterogeneity of the data needed for an environmental decision making tool is overwhelming without adequate database systems and innovative methodologies. As far as data management, data interaction and data processing is concerned we here propose the use of a Geographical Information System (GIS) whilst for the decision making we suggest a Multi-Agent System (MAS) architecture. With the adoption of a GIS we hope to provide a complementary coexistence between heterogeneous data sets, a correct data structure, a good storage capacity and a friendly user’s interface. By choosing a distributed architecture such as a Multi-Agent System, where each agent is a semi-autonomous Expert System with the necessary skills to cooperate with the others in order to solve a given task, we hope to ensure a dynamic problem decomposition and to achieve a better performance compared with standard monolithical architectures. Finally, and in view of the partial, imprecise, and ever changing character of information available for decision making, Belief Revision capabilities are added to the system. Our aim is to present and discuss an intelligent environmental management system capable of suggesting the more appropriate land-use actions based on the existing spatial and non-spatial constraints.

Algorithm-oriented design of efficient many-core architectures applied to dense matrix multiplication

Recent integrated circuit technologies have opened the possibility to design parallel architectures with hundreds of cores on a single chip. The design space of these parallel architectures is huge with many architectural options. Exploring the design space gets even more difficult if, beyond performance and area, we also consider extra metrics like performance and area efficiency, where the designer tries to design the architecture with the best performance per chip area and the best sustainable performance. In this paper we present an algorithm-oriented approach to design a many-core architecture. Instead of doing the design space exploration of the many core architecture based on the experimental execution results of a particular benchmark of algorithms, our approach is to make a formal analysis of the algorithms considering the main architectural aspects and to determine how each particular architectural aspect is related to the performance of the architecture when running an algorithm or set of algorithms. The architectural aspects considered include the number of cores, the local memory available in each core, the communication bandwidth between the many-core architecture and the external memory and the memory hierarchy. To exemplify the approach we did a theoretical analysis of a dense matrix multiplication algorithm and determined an equation that relates the number of execution cycles with the architectural parameters. Based on this equation a many-core architecture has been designed. The results obtained indicate that a 100 mm(2) integrated circuit design of the proposed architecture, using a 65 nm technology, is able to achieve 464 GFLOPs (double precision floating-point) for a memory bandwidth of 16 GB/s. This corresponds to a performance efficiency of 71 %. Considering a 45 nm technology, a 100 mm(2) chip attains 833 GFLOPs which corresponds to 84 % of peak performance These figures are better than those obtained by previous many-core architectures, except for the area efficiency which is limited by the lower memory bandwidth considered. The results achieved are also better than those of previous state-of-the-art many-cores architectures designed specifically to achieve high performance for matrix multiplication.

Service-oriented mobility of java code in web services-based architectures

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Desenvolvimento de um Controlador de Boundary Scan (Ieee 1149.1)

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores - Área de Especialização em Automação e Sistemas

NMR studies of tetrahaem cytochomes from D. desulfuricans and S. frigidimarina

Dissertation Presented to obtain the Ph.D. in Biochemistry

Uma aplicação Web para apoio a laboratórios remotos reconfiguráveis baseados na norma IEEE 1451.0

Nos últimos anos, o processo de ensino e aprendizagem tem sofrido significativas alterações graças ao aparecimento da Internet. Novas ferramentas para apoio ao ensino têm surgido, nas quais se destacam os laboratórios remotos. Atualmente, muitas instituições de ensino disponibilizam laboratórios remotos nos seus cursos, que permitem, a professores e alunos, a realização de experiências reais através da Internet. Estes são implementados por diferentes arquiteturas e infraestruturas, suportados por vários módulos de laboratório acessíveis remotamente (e.g. instrumentos de medição). No entanto, a sua inclusão no ensino é ainda deficitária, devido: i) à falta de meios e competências técnicas das instituições de ensino para os desenvolverem, ii) à dificuldade na partilha dos módulos de laboratório por diferentes infraestruturas e, iii) à reduzida capacidade de os reconfigurar com esses módulos. Para ultrapassar estas limitações, foi idealizado e desenvolvido no âmbito de um trabalho de doutoramento [1] um protótipo, cuja arquitetura é baseada na norma IEEE 1451.0 e na tecnologia de FPGAs. Para além de garantir o desenvolvimento e o acesso de forma normalizada a um laboratório remoto, este protótipo promove ainda a partilha de módulos de laboratório por diferentes infraestruturas. Nesse trabalho explorou-se a capacidade de reconfiguração de FPGAs para embutir na infraestrutura do laboratório vários módulos, todos descritos em ficheiros, utilizando linguagens de descrição de hardware estruturados de acordo com a norma IEEE 1451.0. A definição desses módulos obriga à criação de estruturas de dados binárias (Transducer Electronic Data Sheets, TEDSs), bem como de outros ficheiros que possibilitam a sua interligação com a infraestrutura do laboratório. No entanto, a criação destes ficheiros é bastante complexa, uma vez que exige a realização de vários cálculos e conversões. Tendo em consideração essa mesma complexidade, esta dissertação descreve o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação Web para leitura e escrita dos TEDSs. Para além de um estudo sobre os laboratórios remotos, é efetuada uma descrição da norma IEEE 1451.0, com particular atenção para a sua arquitetura e para a estrutura dos diferentes TEDSs. Com o objetivo de enquadrar a aplicação desenvolvida, efetua-se ainda uma breve apresentação de um protótipo de um laboratório remoto reconfigurável, cuja reconfiguração é apoiada por esta aplicação. Por fim, é descrita a verificação da aplicação Web, de forma a tirar conclusões sobre o seu contributo para a simplificação dessa reconfiguração.

Automatização de testes à framework myMIS

Atualmente, verifica-se um aumento na necessidade de software feito à medida do cliente, que se consiga adaptar de forma rápida as constantes mudanças da sua área de negócio. Cada cliente tem os seus problemas concretos que precisa de resolver, não lhe sendo muitas vezes possível dispensar uma elevada quantidade de recursos para atingir os fins pretendidos. De forma a dar resposta a estes problemas surgiram várias arquiteturas e metodologias de desenvolvimento de software, que permitem o desenvolvimento ágil de aplicações altamente configuráveis, que podem ser personalizadas por qualquer utilizador das mesmas. Este dinamismo, trazido para as aplicações sobre a forma de modelos que são personalizados pelos utilizadores e interpretados por uma plataforma genérica, cria maiores desafios no momento de realizar testes, visto existir um número de variáveis consideravelmente maior que numa aplicação com uma arquitetura tradicional. É necessário, em todos os momentos, garantir a integridade de todos os modelos, bem como da plataforma responsável pela sua interpretação, sem ser necessário o desenvolvimento constante de aplicações para suportar os testes sobre os diferentes modelos. Esta tese debruça-se sobre uma aplicação, a plataforma myMIS, que permite a interpretação de modelos orientados à gestão, escritos numa linguagem específica de domínio, sendo realizada a avaliação do estado atual e definida uma proposta de práticas de testes a aplicar no desenvolvimento da mesma. A proposta resultante desta tese permitiu verificar que, apesar das dificuldades inerentes à arquitetura da aplicação, o desenvolvimento de testes de uma forma genérica é possível, podendo as mesmas lógicas ser utilizadas para o teste de diversos modelos distintos.

Parallel programming in biomedical signal processing

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Biomédica

Multipath inter-domain policy routing

Dissertação submetida para a obtenção do grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Assessing self-organization and emergence in Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS)

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Genetic parameters and mapping quantitative trait loci associated with tibia traits in broilers.

Abstract: Selection among broilers for performance traits is resulting in locomotion problems and bone disorders, once skeletal structure is not strong enough to support body weight in broilers with high growth rates. In this study, genetic parameters were estimated for body weight at 42 days of age (BW42), and tibia traits (length, width, and weight) in a population of broiler chickens. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) were identified for tibia traits to expand our knowledge of the genetic architecture of the broiler population. Genetic correlations ranged from 0.56 +/- 0.18 (between tibia length and BW42) to 0.89 +/- 0.06 (between tibia width and weight), suggesting that these traits are either controlled by pleiotropic genes or by genes that are in linkage disequilibrium. For QTL mapping, the genome was scanned with 127 microsatellites, representing a coverage of 2630 cM. Eight QTL were mapped on Gallus gallus chromosomes (GGA): GGA1, GGA4, GGA6, GGA13, and GGA24. The QTL regions for tibia length and weight were mapped on GGA1, between LEI0079 and MCW145 markers. The gene DACH1 is located in this region; this gene acts to form the apical ectodermal ridge, responsible for limb development. Body weight at 42 days of age was included in the model as a covariate for selection effect of bone traits. Two QTL were found for tibia weight on GGA2 and GGA4, and one for tibia width on GGA3. Information originating from these QTL will assist in the search for candidate genes for these bone traits in future studies.

A cor como abrigo: a arquitectura como cuidado

A presente tese intitulada “A cor como abrigo: a arquitectura como cuidado” tem por objectivo fortalecer a ligação entre a “Teoria das Cores” de Goethe e a arquitectura. Para isso a nossa estratégia foi recuperar os conceitos de espaço e corpo. Ambos começam por ser tomados como realidades físicas mas pouco a pouco vai-se mostrando que tal coisa como uma abordagem ‘puramente física’ do espaço e do corpo não é possível - talvez porque não exista. Mesmo a medicina (ao contrario do que possamos pensar primeiro) é uma ciência que não só reconhece o carácter diáfano do corpo como diariamente luta para ir além de uma concepção do corpo enquanto coisa física por perceber que o corpo é determinado por formas e funções mas sobretudo como tomado por forças. Um exemplo extremo desta interacção entre espaço e corpo (ligados através da arquitectura), onde o carácter diáfano de ambos ganha evidência, é na arquitectura de hospitais, que abordamos por último: “o que é um espaço vivido que tem por principal função restaurar o corpo do seu estado de doença?” As referencias principais são J.W. Goethe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Edmund Husserl, Gilles Deleuze, Christian Norberg- Schulz, Frank Lloyd Wright and Tadao Ando. *********************************************************************This PhD research thesis titled: "Colour as shelter: architecture as care" has as its main goal to strengthen an existing relation between Goethe's Theory of Colours and Architecture. In order to do that our strategy was to use space and body as guiding concepts. Both start as being considered from a pure physical point of view but as our theme develops we see that a “pure physical point of view” concerning space and body it is not possible – perhaps because it does not exist. Medicine (unlike we may think at first) it is a science that not only acknowledges the diaphanous character of the body as daily, tries to go beyond the conception of body as physical thing understanding that the body is determined by forms and functions but mostly taken by forces. An extreme example of the interaction between space and body (linked through architecture), where the diaphanous character of both is evident, is Healthcare architecture: "what is a lived space that has as main function to restore the body of its illness"? Main references are: J.W. Goethe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Edmund Husserl, Gilles Deleuze, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Frank Lloyd Wright and Tadao Ando.

Lipodystrophy in HIV/AIDS patients with different levels of physical activity while on antiretroviral therapy

INTRODUCTION: Lipodystrophy is related to the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and can cause aesthetic stigma and increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Physical activity may be a valid alternative for the treatment and prevention of lipodystrophy. However, few studies address this issue. The objective of this study was to assess lipodystrophy related to highly active antiretroviral therapy in HIV/AIDS patients with different physical activity habits. METHODS: The sample was composed of 42 HIV/AIDS patients taking HAART medication who were visiting the Counseling and Testing Center (CTC) in Presidente Prudente. The level of physical activity was obtained using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ); lipodystrophy was diagnosed using a self-report questionnaire that was administered to the patient and then followed up by medical confirmation. The percentage of trunk fat was estimated by dual X-Ray absorptiometry (DEXA). Information about sex, age, length of HAART treatment, CD4+ T lymphocyte count (CD4) and viral load was also collected. RESULTS: A higher prevalence of lipodystrophy was observed in the sedentary group when compared to the physically active group, which indicates that physical activity may be a protective factor in relation to the occurrence of lipodystrophy. The group that had a higher CD4 had a higher proportion of lipodystrophy and a higher proportion of younger and physically active individuals. The patients with lipodystrophy had a higher percentage of trunk fat and were more sedentary than active individuals. CONCLUSIONS: A physically active lifestyle has a protective effect against the occurrence of lipodystrophy related to HAART.

A intervenção dos orgãos de polícia criminal em sede de julgamento

Currently, Portugal assumes itself as a democratic rule of substantive law State, sustained by a legal system seeking the right balance between the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms constitutional foreseen in Portugal’s Fundamental Law and criminal persecution. The architecture of the penal code lies with, roughly speaking, a accusatory basic structure, “deliberately attached to one of the most remarkable achievements of the civilizational democratic progress, and by obedience to the constitutional commandment”, in balance with the official investigation principle, valid both for the purpose of prosecution and trial. Regarding the principle of non self-incrimination - nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare, briefly defined as the defendant’s right of not being obliged to contribute to the self-incrimination, it should be stressed that there isn’t an explicit consecration in the Portuguese Constitution, being commonly accepted in an implicit constitutional prediction and deriving from other constitutional rights and principles, first and foremost, the meaning and scope of the concept of democratic rule of Law State, embedded in the Fundamental Law, and in the guidelines of the constitutional principles of human person dignity, freedom of action and the presumption of innocence. In any case, about the (in) applicability of the principle of the prohibition of self-incrimination to the Criminal Police Bodies in the trial hearing in Court, and sharing an idea of Guedes Valente, the truth is that the exercise of criminal action must tread a transparent path and non-compliant with methods to obtain evidence that violate the law, the public order or in violation of democratic principles and loyalty (Guedes Valente, 2013, p. 484). Within the framework of the penal process relating to the trial, which is assumed as the true phase of the process, the witness represents a relevant figure for the administration of criminal justice, for the testimonial proof is, in the idea of Othmar Jauernig, the worst proof of evidence, but also being the most frequent (Jauernig, 1998, p. 289). As coadjutant of the Public Prosecutor and, in specific cases, the investigating judge, the Criminal Police Bodies are invested with high responsibility, being "the arms and eyes of Judicial Authorities in pursuing the criminal investigation..." which has as ultimate goal the fulfillment of the Law pursuing the defense of society" (Guedes Valente, 2013, p. 485). It is in this context and as a witness that, throughout operational career, the Criminal Police Bodies are required to be at the trial hearing and clarify the Court with its view about the facts relating to occurrences of criminal context, thus contributing very significantly and, in some cases, decisively for the proper administration of the portuguese criminal justice. With regards to the intervention of Criminal Police Bodies in the trial hearing in Court, it’s important that they pay attention to a set of standards concerning the preparation of the testimony, the very provision of the testimony and, also, to its conclusion. Be emphasized that these guidelines may become crucial for the quality of the police testimony at the trial hearing, thus leading to an improvement of the enforcement of justice system. In this vein, while preparing the testimony, the Criminal Police Bodies must present itself in court with proper clothing, to read before and carefully the case files, to debate the facts being judged with other Criminal Police Bodies and prepare potential questions. Later, while giving his testimony during the trial, the Criminal Police Bodies must, summing up, to take the oath in a convincing manner, to feel comfortable, to start well by convincingly answering the first question, keep an attitude of serenity, to adopt an attitude of collaboration, to avoid the reading of documents, to demonstrate deference and seriousness before the judicial operators, to use simple and objective language, to adopt a fluent speech, to use nonverbal language correctly, to avoid spontaneity responding only to what is asked, to report only the truth, to avoid hesitations and contradictions, to be impartial and to maintain eye contact with the judge. Finally, at the conclusion of the testimony, the Criminal Police Bodies should rise in a smooth manner, avoiding to show relief, resentment or satisfaction, leaving a credible and professional image and, without much formality, requesting the judge permission to leave the courtroom. As final note, it’s important to stress that "The intervention of the Police Criminal Bodies in the trial hearing in Court” encloses itself on a theme of crucial importance not only for members of the Police and Security Forces, who must welcome this subject with the utmost seriousness and professionalism, but also for the proper administration of the criminal justice system in Portugal.