O Brasil na primeira década do século XXI: perspectivas do desenvolvimento com estabilidade

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Towards a java bytecodes compiler for nios II soft-core processor

Reconfigurable computing is one of the most recent research topics in computer science. The Altera - Nios II soft-core processor can be included in a large set of reconfigurable architectures, especially because it is designed in software, allowing it to be configured according to the application. The recent growth in applications that demand reconfigurable computing made necessary the building of compilers that translate high level languages source codes into reconfigurable devices instruction sets. In this paper we present a compiler that takes as input the bytecodes generated by a Java front-end compiler and generates a set of instructions that attends to the Nios II processor instruction set rules. Our work shows how we process Java bytecodes to the intermediate code, in the Nios II instructions format, and build the control flow and the control dependence graphs. © 2009 IEEE.

A tool to simplify the management of homogeneous and heterogeneous grids

To simplify computer management, several system administrators are adopting advanced techniques to manage software configuration on grids, but the tight coupling between hardware and software makes every PC an individual managed entity, lowering the scalability and increasing the costs to manage hundreds or thousands of PCs. This paper discusses the feasibility of a distributed virtual machine environment, named Flexlab: a new approach for computer management that combines virtualization and distributed system architectures as the basis of a management system. Flexlab is able to extend the coverage of a computer management solution beyond client operating system limitations and also offers a convenient hardware abstraction, decoupling software and hardware, simplifying computer management. The results obtained in this work indicate that FlexLab is able to overcome the limitations imposed by the coupling between software and hardware, simplifying the management of homogeneous and heterogeneous grids. © 2009 IEEE.

The Owner Share scheduler for a distributed system

In large distributed systems, where shared resources are owned by distinct entities, there is a need to reflect resource ownership in resource allocation. An appropriate resource management system should guarantee that resource's owners have access to a share of resources proportional to the share they provide. In order to achieve that some policies can be used for revoking access to resources currently used by other users. In this paper, a scheduling policy based in the concept of distributed ownership is introduced called Owner Share Enforcement Policy (OSEP). OSEP goal is to guarantee that owner do not have their jobs postponed for longer periods of time. We evaluate the results achieved with the application of this policy using metrics that describe policy violation, loss of capacity, policy cost and user satisfaction in environments with and without job checkpointing. We also evaluate and compare the OSEP policy with the Fair-Share policy, and from these results it is possible to capture the trade-offs from different ways to achieve fairness based on the user satisfaction. © 2009 IEEE.

A regularized nonlinear diffusion approach for texture image denoising

In this paper a new partial differential equation based method is presented with a view to denoising images having textures. The proposed model combines a nonlinear anisotropic diffusion filter with recent harmonic analysis techniques. A wave atom shrinkage allied to detection by gradient technique is used to guide the diffusion process so as to smooth and maintain essential image characteristics. Two forcing terms are used to maintain and improve edges, boundaries and oscillatory features of an image having irregular details and texture. Experimental results show the performance of our model for texture preserving denoising when compared to recent methods in literature. © 2009 IEEE.

Multi-trait and random regression mature weight heritability and breeding value estimates in Nelore cattle

Mature weight breeding values were estimated using a multi-trait animal model (MM) and a random regression animal model (RRM). Data consisted of 82 064 weight records from 8 145 animals, recorded from birth to eight years of age. Weights at standard ages were considered in the MM. All models included contemporary groups as fixed effects, and age of dam (linear and quadratic effects) and animal age as covariates. In the RRM, mean trends were modelled through a cubic regression on orthogonal polynomials of animal age and genetic maternal and direct and maternal permanent environmental effects were also included as random. Legendre polynomials of orders 4, 3, 6 and 3 were used for animal and maternal genetic and permanent environmental effects, respectively, considering five classes of residual variances. Mature weight (five years) direct heritability estimates were 0.35 (MM) and 0.38 (RRM). Rank correlation between sires' breeding values estimated by MM and RRM was 0.82. However, selecting the top 2% (12) or 10% (62) of the young sires based on the MM predicted breeding values, respectively 71% and 80% of the same sires would be selected if RRM estimates were used instead. The RRM modelled the changes in the (co)variances with age adequately and larger breeding value accuracies can be expected using this model. © South African Society for Animal Science.

El mercado vitivinícola mundial y el flujo de inversión extranjera a Chile

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El impacto del proceso de fusiones y adquisiciones en la Argentina sobre el mapa de grandes empresas: factores determinantes y transformaciones en el universo de las grandes empresas de capital local

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Expression of p53, Ki-67, and CD31 proteins in endometrial polyps of postmenopausal women treated with tamoxifen.

This study was undertaken to investigate the expression of p53, Ki-67, and CD31 proteins in endometrial polyps of postmenopausal women treated with tamoxifen (TAM). Postmenopausal women with endometrial polyps treated with TAM (n = 20), postmenopausal women with endometrial polyps without hormone use (n = 20), postmenopausal women with atrophic endometrium (n = 20), and postmenopausal women with endometrial adenocarcinoma (n = 20) were prospectively investigated. Tissue samples were immunohistochemically evaluated by monoclonal antibodies for p53, Ki-67, and CD31. The data were analyzed using the Student t test, analysis of variance, and χ2 to evaluate significant differences between the groups. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05. There was no difference in the expression of p53 between the groups (P = 0.067). The expression of Ki-67 was higher in the polyp samples from TAM-treated women compared with those from the women using no hormone (P = 0.0047) and those from the women with atrophic endometrium (P = 0.008). Samples from the women with endometrial cancer was associated with higher Ki-67 expression compared with the polyp samples from TAM-treated women (P = 0.004). The expression of CD31 was higher in the polyp samples of TAM-treated women compared with that of the samples from the women with atrophic endometrium (P < 0.001) and similar to the polyp samples from the women using no hormone (P = 0.319) and to the samples from the women with endometrial cancer (P = 0.418). The use of TAM in postmenopausal women might be associated with increased cellular proliferation in endometrial polyps without interfering angiogenesis or inactivation of tumor suppressor proteins.

Scheduler simulation using iSPD, an iconic-based computer grid simulator

Increased accessibility to high-performance computing resources has created a demand for user support through performance evaluation tools like the iSPD (iconic Simulator for Parallel and Distributed systems), a simulator based on iconic modelling for distributed environments such as computer grids. It was developed to make it easier for general users to create their grid models, including allocation and scheduling algorithms. This paper describes how schedulers are managed by iSPD and how users can easily adopt the scheduling policy that improves the system being simulated. A thorough description of iSPD is given, detailing its scheduler manager. Some comparisons between iSPD and Simgrid simulations, including runs of the simulated environment in a real cluster, are also presented. © 2012 IEEE.

BBA: A binary bat algorithm for feature selection

Feature selection aims to find the most important information from a given set of features. As this task can be seen as an optimization problem, the combinatorial growth of the possible solutions may be in-viable for a exhaustive search. In this paper we propose a new nature-inspired feature selection technique based on the bats behaviour, which has never been applied to this context so far. The wrapper approach combines the power of exploration of the bats together with the speed of the Optimum-Path Forest classifier to find the set of features that maximizes the accuracy in a validating set. Experiments conducted in five public datasets have demonstrated that the proposed approach can outperform some well-known swarm-based techniques. © 2012 IEEE.

Improving image classification through descriptor combination

The efficiency in image classification tasks can be improved using combined information provided by several sources, such as shape, color, and texture visual properties. Although many works proposed to combine different feature vectors, we model the descriptor combination as an optimization problem to be addressed by evolutionary-based techniques, which compute distances between samples that maximize their separability in the feature space. The robustness of the proposed technique is assessed by the Optimum-Path Forest classifier. Experiments showed that the proposed methodology can outperform individual information provided by single descriptors in well-known public datasets. © 2012 IEEE.

Effect of the usual weight of a backpack on body sway during quiet standing

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to verify the effect on body sway during quiet standing of the habitual weight carried by students in a backpack. [Subjects] Forty-six students between the ages of 8 and 14 years volunteered. [Method] The percentage of body weight (% BW) of each student's backpack was calculated and the students were separated into three groups based on the results: Group A (0-7% BW), Group B (7.01-14% BW) and Group C (14.01-21%BW). [Results] The use of the backpack increased the area of the CoP sway, displacement and mean speed of the CoP data in the antero-posterior and medial-lateral directions in Group C. [Conclusion] Therefore, observed responses in the body posture changes caused by the weight of the backpack were similar to those reported in other studies conducted with different methodos of investigation.

Chronic Ethanol Consumption Alters All-Trans-Retinoic Acid Concentration and Expression of Their Receptors on the Prostate: A Possible Link Between Alcoholism and Prostate Damage

Background: Ethanol (EtOH) alters the all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) levels in some tissues. Retinol and ATRA are essential for cell proliferation, differentiation, and maintenance of prostate homeostasis. It has been suggested that disturbances in retinol/ATRA concentration as well as in the expression of retinoic acid receptors (RARs) contribute to benign prostate hyperplasia and prostate cancer. This study aimed to evaluate whether EtOH consumption is able to alter retinol and ATRA levels in the plasma and prostate tissue as well as the expression of RARs, cell proliferation, and apoptosis index. Methods: All animals were divided into 4 groups (n = 10/group). UChA: rats fed 10% (v/v) EtOH ad libitum; UChACo: EtOH-naïve rats without access to EtOH; UChB: rats fed 10% (v/v) EtOH ad libitum; UChBCo: EtOH-naïve rats without access to EtOH. Animals were euthanized by decapitation after 60 days of EtOH consumption for high-performance liquid chromatography and light microscopy analysis. Results: EtOH reduced plasma retinol concentration in both UChA and UChB groups, while the retinol concentration was not significantly different in prostate tissue. Conversely, plasma and prostate ATRA levels increased in UChB group compared with controls, beyond the up-regulation of RARβ and -γ in dorsal prostate lobe. Additionally, no alteration was found in cell proliferation and apoptosis index involving dorsal and lateral prostate lobe. Conclusions: We conclude that EtOH alters the plasma retinol concentrations proportionally to the amount of EtOH consumed. Moreover, high EtOH consumption increases the concentration of ATRA in plasma/prostate tissue and especially induces the RARβ and RARγ in the dorsal prostate lobe. EtOH consumption and increased ATRA levels were not associated with cell proliferation and apoptosis in the prostate. © 2012 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.

HDAC inhibition decreases XIST expression on female IVP bovine blastocysts

During initial development, both X chromosomes are active in females, and one of them must be silenced at the appropriate time in order to dosage compensate their gene expression levels to male counterparts. Silencing involves epigenetic mechanisms, including histone deacetylation. Major X chromosome inactivation (XCI) in bovine occurs between hatching and implantation, although in vitro culture conditions might disrupt the silencing process, increasing or decreasing X-linked gene expression. In this study, we aimed to address the roles of histone deacetylase inhibition by trichostatin A (TSA) on female preimplantation development.We tested the hypothesis that by enhancing histone acetylation, TSA would increase the percentage of embryos achieving 16-cell stage, reducing percentage of embryos blocked at 8-cell stage, and interfere with XCI in IVF embryos. We noticed that after TSA treatment, acetylation levels in individual blastomeres of 8-16 cell embryos were increased twofold on treated embryos, and the samewas detected for blastocysts. Changes among blastomere levels within the same embryo were diminished on TSA group, as low-acetylated blastomeres were no longer detected. The percentage of embryos that reached the 5th cleavage cycle 118 h after IVF, analyzed by Hoechst staining, remained unaltered after TSA treatment. Then, we assessed XIST and G6PD expression in individual female bovine blastocysts by quantitative real-time PCR. Even though G6PD expression remained unaltered after TSA exposure, XIST expression was eightfold decreased, and we also detected a major decrease in the percentage of blastocysts expressing detectable XIST levels after TSA treatment. Based on these results, we conclude that HDAC is involved on XCI process in bovine embryos, and its inhibition might delay X chromosome silencing and attenuate aberrant XIST expression described for IVF embryos. © 2013 Society for Reproduction and Fertility.