An Indexing Structure and Application Model for Vehicles Moving on Road Networks

Moving objects database systems are the most challenging sub-category among Spatio-Temporal database systems. A database system that updates in real-time the location information of GPS-equipped moving vehicles has to meet even stricter requirements. Currently existing data storage models and indexing mechanisms work well only when the number of moving objects in the system is relatively small. This dissertation research aimed at the real-time tracking and history retrieval of massive numbers of vehicles moving on road networks. A total solution has been provided for the real-time update of the vehicles’ location and motion information, range queries on current and history data, and prediction of vehicles’ movement in the near future. To achieve these goals, a new approach called Segmented Time Associated to Partitioned Space (STAPS) was first proposed in this dissertation for building and manipulating the indexing structures for moving objects databases. Applying the STAPS approach, an indexing structure of associating a time interval tree to each road segment was developed for real-time database systems of vehicles moving on road networks. The indexing structure uses affordable storage to support real-time data updates and efficient query processing. The data update and query processing performance it provides is consistent without restrictions such as a time window or assuming linear moving trajectories. An application system design based on distributed system architecture with centralized organization was developed to maximally support the proposed data and indexing structures. The suggested system architecture is highly scalable and flexible. Finally, based on a real-world application model of vehicles moving in region-wide, main issues on the implementation of such a system were addressed.

Seawater carbonate chemistry and particulate organic particles during a semicontinuous batch culture experiment with Trichodesmium IMS101, 2007

Diazotrophic (N2-fixing) cyanobacteria provide the biological source of new nitrogen for large parts of the ocean. However, little is known about their sensitivity to global change. Here we show that the single most important nitrogen fixer in today's ocean, Trichodesmium, is strongly affected by changes in CO2 concentrations. Cell division rate doubled with rising CO2 (glacial to projected year 2100 levels) prompting lower carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cellular contents, and reduced cell dimensions. N2 fixation rates per unit of phosphorus utilization as well as C:P and N:P ratios more than doubled at high CO2, with no change in C:N ratios. This could enhance the productivity of N-limited oligotrophic oceans, drive some of these areas into P limitation, and increase biological carbon sequestration in the ocean. The observed CO2 sensitivity of Trichodesmium could thereby provide a strong negative feedback to atmospheric CO2 increase.

Seawater carbonate chemistry and processes during experiments with phytoplankton Emiliania huxleyi (strain Bergen 2005), 2010

The response of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi to rising CO2 concentrations is well documented for acclimated cultures where cells are exposed to the CO2 treatments for several generations prior to the experiment. The exact number of generations required for acclimation to CO2-induced changes in seawater carbonate chemistry, however, is unknown. Here we show that Emiliania huxleyi's short-term response (26 h) after cultures (grown at 500 µatm) were abruptly exposed to changed CO2 concentrations (~190, 410, 800 and 1500 ?atm) is similar to that obtained with acclimated cultures under comparable conditions in earlier studies. Most importantly, from the lower CO2 levels (190 and 410 ?atm) to 750 and 1500 µatm calcification decreased and organic carbon fixation increased within the first 8 to 14 h after exposing the cultures to changes in carbonate chemistry. This suggests that Emiliania huxleyi rapidly alters the rates of essential metabolical processes in response to changes in seawater carbonate chemistry, establishing a new physiological "state" (acclimation) within a matter of hours. If this relatively rapid response applies to other phytoplankton species, it may simplify interpretation of studies with natural communities (e.g. mesocosm studies and ship-board incubations), where often it is not feasible to allow for a pre-conditioning phase before starting experimental incubations.

Técnica para segmentação automática de imagens microscópicas de componentes sanguíneos e classificação diferencial de leucócitos baseada em lógica fuzzy

Automatic detection of blood components is an important topic in the field of hematology. The segmentation is an important stage because it allows components to be grouped into common areas and processed separately and leukocyte differential classification enables them to be analyzed separately. With the auto-segmentation and differential classification, this work is contributing to the analysis process of blood components by providing tools that reduce the manual labor and increasing its accuracy and efficiency. Using techniques of digital image processing associated with a generic and automatic fuzzy approach, this work proposes two Fuzzy Inference Systems, defined as I and II, for autosegmentation of blood components and leukocyte differential classification, respectively, in microscopic images smears. Using the Fuzzy Inference System I, the proposed technique performs the segmentation of the image in four regions: the leukocyte’s nucleus and cytoplasm, erythrocyte and plasma area and using the Fuzzy Inference System II and the segmented leukocyte (nucleus and cytoplasm) classify them differentially in five types: basophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, monocytes and neutrophils. Were used for testing 530 images containing microscopic samples of blood smears with different methods. The images were processed and its accuracy indices and Gold Standards were calculated and compared with the manual results and other results found at literature for the same problems. Regarding segmentation, a technique developed showed percentages of accuracy of 97.31% for leukocytes, 95.39% to erythrocytes and 95.06% for blood plasma. As for the differential classification, the percentage varied between 92.98% and 98.39% for the different leukocyte types. In addition to promoting auto-segmentation and differential classification, the proposed technique also contributes to the definition of new descriptors and the construction of an image database using various processes hematological staining

FTE-LEACH: um protocolo energeticamente eficiente e tolerante a falhas aplicado às redes industriais de sensores sem fio

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of distributed devices in an area in order to monitor physical variables such as temperature, pressure, vibration, motion and environmental conditions in places where wired networks would be difficult or impractical to implement, for example, industrial applications of difficult access, monitoring and control of oil wells on-shore or off-shore, monitoring of large areas of agricultural and animal farming, among others. To be viable, a WSN should have important requirements such as low cost, low latency, and especially low power consumption. However, to ensure these requirements, these networks suffer from limited resources, and eventually being used in hostile environments, leading to high failure rates, such as segmented routing, mes sage loss, reducing efficiency, and compromising the entire network, inclusive. This work aims to present the FTE-LEACH, a fault tolerant and energy efficient routing protocol that maintains efficiency in communication and dissemination of data.This protocol was developed based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and suitable for industrial networks with limited energy resources

Study of Periodic and Quasi-Periodic Structures in Silicon-on-Insulator

In this thesis, a numerical design approach has been proposed and developed based on the transmission matrix method in order to characterize periodic and quasi-periodic photonic structures in silicon-on-insulator. The approach and its performance have been extensively tested with specific structures in 2D and its validity has been verified in 3D.

Classificação de nódulos pulmonares em imagens tomográficas utilizando redes neurais artificiais em cascata

Lung cancer is the most common of malignant tumors, with 1.59 million new cases worldwide in 2012. Early detection is the main factor to determine the survival of patients affected by this disease. Furthermore, the correct classification is important to define the most appropriate therapeutic approach as well as suggest the prognosis and the clinical disease evolution. Among the exams used to detect lung cancer, computed tomography have been the most indicated. However, CT images are naturally complex and even experts medical are subject to fault detection or classification. In order to assist the detection of malignant tumors, computer-aided diagnosis systems have been developed to aid reduce the amount of false positives biopsies. In this work it was developed an automatic classification system of pulmonary nodules on CT images by using Artificial Neural Networks. Morphological, texture and intensity attributes were extracted from lung nodules cut tomographic images using elliptical regions of interest that they were subsequently segmented by Otsu method. These features were selected through statistical tests that compare populations (T test of Student and U test of Mann-Whitney); from which it originated a ranking. The features after selected, were inserted in Artificial Neural Networks (backpropagation) to compose two types of classification; one to classify nodules in malignant and benign (network 1); and another to classify two types of malignancies (network 2); featuring a cascade classifier. The best networks were associated and its performance was measured by the area under the ROC curve, where the network 1 and network 2 achieved performance equal to 0.901 and 0.892 respectively.

Can aberrometry provide rapid and reliable measures of subjective depth of focus following multifocal intraocular lens implantation?

Purpose: To determine whether the ‘through-focus’ aberrations of a multifocal and accommodative intraocular lens (IOL) implanted patient can be used to provide rapid and reliable measures of their subjective range of clear vision. Methods: Eyes that had been implanted with a concentric (n = 8), segmented (n = 10) or accommodating (n = 6) intraocular lenses (mean age 62.9 ± 8.9 years; range 46-79 years) for over a year underwent simultaneous monocular subjective (electronic logMAR test chart at 4m with letters randomised between presentations) and objective (Aston open-field aberrometer) defocus curve testing for levels of defocus between +1.50 to -5.00DS in -0.50DS steps, in a randomised order. Pupil size and ocular aberration (a combination of the patient’s and the defocus inducing lens aberrations) at each level of blur was measured by the aberrometer. Visual acuity was measured subjectively at each level of defocus to determine the traditional defocus curve. Objective acuity was predicted using image quality metrics. Results: The range of clear focus differed between the three IOL types (F=15.506, P=0.001) as well as between subjective and objective defocus curves (F=6.685, p=0.049). There was no statistically significant difference between subjective and objective defocus curves in the segmented or concentric ring MIOL group (P>0.05). However a difference was found between the two measures and the accommodating IOL group (P<0.001). Mean Delta logMAR (predicted minus measured logMAR) across all target vergences was -0.06 ± 0.19 logMAR. Predicted logMAR defocus curves for the multifocal IOLs did not show a near vision addition peak, unlike the subjective measurement of visual acuity. However, there was a strong positive correlation between measured and predicted logMAR for all three IOLs (Pearson’s correlation: P<0.001). Conclusions: Current subjective procedures are lengthy and do not enable important additional measures such as defocus curves under differently luminance or contrast levels to be assessed, which may limit our understanding of MIOL performance in real-world conditions. In general objective aberrometry measures correlated well with the subjective assessment indicating the relative robustness of this technique in evaluating post-operative success with segmented and concentric ring MIOL.

Low-dimensional, hinged bar-code metal oxide layers and free-standing, ordered organic nanostructures from turbostratic vanadium oxide

Both low-dimensional bar-coded metal oxide layers, which exhibit molecular hinging, and free-standing organic nanostructures can be obtained from unique nanofibers of vanadium oxide (VOx). The nanofibers are successfully synthesized by a simple chemical route using an ethanolic solution of vanadium pentoxide xerogel and dodecanethiol resulting in a double bilayered laminar turbostratic structure. The formation of vanadium oxide nanofibers is observed after hydrothermal treatment of the thiol-intercalated xerogel, resulting in typical lengths in the range 2–6 µm and widths of about 50–500 nm. We observe concomitant hinging of the flexible nanofiber lamina at periodic hinge points in the final product on both the nanoscale and molecular level. Bar-coded nanofibers comprise alternating segments of organic–inorganic (thiols–VOx) material and are amenable to segmented, localized metal nanoparticle docking. Under certain conditions free-standing bilayered organic nanostructures are realized.

Statistical methods for polyhedral shape classification with incomplete data - application to cryo-electron tomographic images

A certain type of bacterial inclusion, known as a bacterial microcompartment, was recently identified and imaged through cryo-electron tomography. A reconstructed 3D object from single-axis limited angle tilt-series cryo-electron tomography contains missing regions and this problem is known as the missing wedge problem. Due to missing regions on the reconstructed images, analyzing their 3D structures is a challenging problem. The existing methods overcome this problem by aligning and averaging several similar shaped objects. These schemes work well if the objects are symmetric and several objects with almost similar shapes and sizes are available. Since the bacterial inclusions studied here are not symmetric, are deformed, and show a wide range of shapes and sizes, the existing approaches are not appropriate. This research develops new statistical methods for analyzing geometric properties, such as volume, symmetry, aspect ratio, polyhedral structures etc., of these bacterial inclusions in presence of missing data. These methods work with deformed and non-symmetric varied shaped objects and do not necessitate multiple objects for handling the missing wedge problem. The developed methods and contributions include: (a) an improved method for manual image segmentation, (b) a new approach to 'complete' the segmented and reconstructed incomplete 3D images, (c) a polyhedral structural distance model to predict the polyhedral shapes of these microstructures, (d) a new shape descriptor for polyhedral shapes, named as polyhedron profile statistic, and (e) the Bayes classifier, linear discriminant analysis and support vector machine based classifiers for supervised incomplete polyhedral shape classification. Finally, the predicted 3D shapes for these bacterial microstructures belong to the Johnson solids family, and these shapes along with their other geometric properties are important for better understanding of their chemical and biological characteristics.

Open-source virtual bronchoscopy for image guided navigation

This thesis describes the development of an open-source system for virtual bronchoscopy used in combination with electromagnetic instrument tracking. The end application is virtual navigation of the lung for biopsy of early stage cancer nodules. The open-source platform 3D Slicer was used for creating freely available algorithms for virtual bronchscopy. Firstly, the development of an open-source semi-automatic algorithm for prediction of solitary pulmonary nodule malignancy is presented. This approach may help the physician decide whether to proceed with biopsy of the nodule. The user-selected nodule is segmented in order to extract radiological characteristics (i.e., size, location, edge smoothness, calcification presence, cavity wall thickness) which are combined with patient information to calculate likelihood of malignancy. The overall accuracy of the algorithm is shown to be high compared to independent experts' assessment of malignancy. The algorithm is also compared with two different predictors, and our approach is shown to provide the best overall prediction accuracy. The development of an airway segmentation algorithm which extracts the airway tree from surrounding structures on chest Computed Tomography (CT) images is then described. This represents the first fundamental step toward the creation of a virtual bronchoscopy system. Clinical and ex-vivo images are used to evaluate performance of the algorithm. Different CT scan parameters are investigated and parameters for successful airway segmentation are optimized. Slice thickness is the most affecting parameter, while variation of reconstruction kernel and radiation dose is shown to be less critical. Airway segmentation is used to create a 3D rendered model of the airway tree for virtual navigation. Finally, the first open-source virtual bronchoscopy system was combined with electromagnetic tracking of the bronchoscope for the development of a GPS-like system for navigating within the lungs. Tools for pre-procedural planning and for helping with navigation are provided. Registration between the lungs of the patient and the virtually reconstructed airway tree is achieved using a landmark-based approach. In an attempt to reduce difficulties with registration errors, we also implemented a landmark-free registration method based on a balanced airway survey. In-vitro and in-vivo testing showed good accuracy for this registration approach. The centreline of the 3D airway model is extracted and used to compensate for possible registration errors. Tools are provided to select a target for biopsy on the patient CT image, and pathways from the trachea towards the selected targets are automatically created. The pathways guide the physician during navigation, while distance to target information is updated in real-time and presented to the user. During navigation, video from the bronchoscope is streamed and presented to the physician next to the 3D rendered image. The electromagnetic tracking is implemented with 5 DOF sensing that does not provide roll rotation information. An intensity-based image registration approach is implemented to rotate the virtual image according to the bronchoscope's rotations. The virtual bronchoscopy system is shown to be easy to use and accurate in replicating the clinical setting, as demonstrated in the pre-clinical environment of a breathing lung method. Animal studies were performed to evaluate the overall system performance.

(Figure 2, page 940) K-T boundary enrichment for cerium and iridium chemical composition of layers inside the ZETES-3D manganese nodule in the Pacific Ocean

Hydrogenous manganese nodules form on the ocean floor by slow authigenic precipitation (1-6 mm/Ma) of the oxyhydroxides of manganese and iron that continuously scavenge trace elements from the marine environment. Consequently, these nodules represent independent marine deposits useful for the study of the chemical signatures of the paleomarine environments. The results presented are a continuation of a study of the Zetes-3D nodule from the Pacific Ocean. It is a large (24x17x10 cm) hydrogenous nodule whose slow growth rate of 1.3 mm/Ma was detremined using 10Be techniques. A positive cerium anomaly is observed throughout the nodule and its Ir content indicates a sharp spike at 54-62 Ma in fair agreement with the K-T event.

Dissolved Iron, Aluminium, and Dissolved Inorganic Phosphorus in the (Sub-)Tropical Atlantic Surface Ocean

Inorganic nitrogen depletion restricts productivity in much of the low-latitude oceans, generating a selective advantage for diazotrophic organisms capable of fixing atmospheric dinitrogen (N2). However, the abundance and activity of diazotrophs can in turn be controlled by the availability of other potentially limiting nutrients, including phosphorus (P) and iron (Fe). Here we present high-resolution data (~0.3°) for dissolved iron, aluminum, and inorganic phosphorus that confirm the existence of a sharp north-south biogeochemical boundary in the surface nutrient concentrations of the (sub)tropical Atlantic Ocean. Combining satellite-based precipitation data with results from a previous study, we here demonstrate that wet deposition in the region of the intertropical convergence zone acts as the major dissolved iron source to surface waters. Moreover, corresponding observations of N2 fixation and the distribution of diazotrophic Trichodesmium spp. indicate that movement in the region of elevated dissolved iron as a result of the seasonal migration of the intertropical convergence zone drives a shift in the latitudinal distribution of diazotrophy and corresponding dissolved inorganic phosphorus depletion. These conclusions are consistent with the results of an idealized numerical model of the system. The boundary between the distinct biogeochemical systems of the (sub)tropical Atlantic thus appears to be defined by the diazotrophic response to spatial-temporal variability in external Fe inputs. Consequently, in addition to demonstrating a unique seasonal cycle forced by atmospheric nutrient inputs, we suggest that the underlying biogeochemical mechanisms would likely characterize the response of oligotrophic systems to altered environmental forcing over longer timescales.

UPTAKE OF THE PERIODIC HEALTH EXAM AMONG ADULTS WITH INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES FROM 2003 TO 2015

Background: Over the past decade, annual heath exams have been de-emphasized for the general population but emphasized for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The purpose of this project was to determine if there has been an increase in the uptake of the health exam among adults with IDD in Ontario, to what extent, and the effect on the quality of preventive care provided. Methods: Using administrative health data, the proportion of adults (18-64 years old) with IDD who received a health exam (long appointment, general assessment, and “true” health exam), a high value on the primary care quality composite score (PCQS), and a health exam or high PCQS each year was compared to the proportion in a propensity score matched sample of the general population. Negative binomial and segmented negative binomial regression controlling for age and sex were used to determine the relative risk of having a health exam/high PCQS/health exam or PCQS over time. Results: Pre joinpoint, the long appointment and general assessment health exam definitions saw a decrease and the “true” health exam saw an increase in the likelihood of adults having a health exam. Post joinpoint, all health exam definitions saw a decrease in the likelihood of adults having a health exam. Pre joinpoint, all PCQS measures (high PCQS, long appointment or high PCQS, “true” health exam or high PCQS) saw an increase in the likelihood for adults to achieve a high PCQS or high PCQS/have a health exam. Post joinpoint, all PCQS measures saw a decrease in the likelihood for adults to achieve a high PCQS or high PCQS/have a health exam. Achieving a high PCQS was strongly associated with having a health exam regardless of health exam definition or IDD status. Conclusions: Despite the publication of guidelines, only a small proportion of adults with IDD are receiving health exams. This indicates that the publication of guidelines alone was not sufficient to change practice. More targeted measures, such as the implementation of an IDD-specific health exam fee code, should be considered to increase the uptake of the health exam among adults with IDD.

Crisis of work as a social integration factor

This article analyzes the process of deterioration of the work as a source of social rights and as a social integration element. The context of this process is the passage of a wage-labour society with stable employment to other where the labour relations are deregulated. This aim was tackled by means of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Secondary sources of statistical information were used together with interviews to experts of the institutional sphere. The results of this research show the emergence of a new exclusive model of social cohesion based on intensification and generalization of social inequalities and job insecurity. In this new model of social cohesion, it is noted that the integration strategies of people have less and less support from Government and people are neglected. This process appears in the four spheres that classify the social exclusion risks factors: the structural, the institutional, the relational and the individual.