Diversity of LFPs Activated in Different Target Regions by a Common CA3 Input

Identifying the pathways contributing to local field potential (LFP) events and oscillations is essential to determine whether synchronous interregional patterns indicate functional connectivity. Here, we studied experimentally and numerically how different target structures receiving input from a common population shape their LFPs. We focused on the bilateral CA3 that sends gamma-paced excitatory packages to the bilateral CA1, the lateral septum, and itself (recurrent input). The CA3-specific contribution was isolated from multisite LFPs in target regions using spatial discrimination techniques. We found strong modulation of LFPs by target-specific features, including the morphology and population arrangement of cells, the timing of CA3 inputs, volume conduction from nearby targets, and co-activated inhibition. Jointly they greatly affect the LFP amplitude, profile, and frequency characteristics. For instance, ipsilateral (Schaffer) LFPs occluded contralateral ones, and septal LFPs arise mostly from remote sources while local contribution from CA3 input was minor. In the CA3 itself, gamma waves have dual origin from local networks: in-phase excitatory and nearly antiphase inhibitory. Also, waves may have different duration and varying phase in different targets. These results indicate that to explore the cellular basis of LFPs and the functional connectivity between structures, besides identifying the origin population/s, target modifiers should be considered.

Development of a framework to create plugins in Android Apps

The present work aims to allow developers to implement small features on a certain Android application in a fast and easy manner, as well as provide their users to install them ondemand, i.e., they can install the ones they are interested in. These small packages of features are called plugins, and the chosen development language to develop these in was JavaScript. In order to achieve that, an Android framework was developed that enables the host application to install, manage and run these plugins at runtime. This framework was designed to have a very clean and almost readable API, which allowed for better code organization and maintainability. The implementation used the Google’s engine “V8” to interpret the JavaScript code and through a set of JNI calls made that code call certain Android methods previously registered in the runtime. In order to test the framework, it was integrated with the client’s communication application RCS+ using two plugins developed alongside the framework. Although these plugins had only the more common requirements, they were proven to work successfully as intended. Concluding, the framework although successful made it clear that this kind of development through a non-native API has its set of difficulties especially regarding the implementation of complex features.

Free software and free culture in Higher Education: pipelines and workflows for creative purposes

OpenLab ESEV is a project of the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu (ESEV), Portugal, that aims to promote, foster and support the use of Free/Libre Software and Open Source Software, Open Educational Resources, Free Culture, Free file formats and more flexible copyright licenses for creative and educational purposes in the ESEV's domains of activity (education, arts, media). Most of the OpenLab ESEV activities are related to the teacher education and arts and multimedia programs, with a special focus on the later. In this paper, the project and some activities are presented, starting with its origins and its conceptual framework. The presented overview is intended as background for the examination of the use of Free/Libre Software and Free Culture in educational settings, specially at the higher education level, and for creative purposes. The activities developed with students and professionals generated pipelines and workflows implemented for different creative purposes, software packages used for different tasks, choices for file formats and copyright licenses. Finished and ongoing multimedia and arts projects will be presented as real case scenarios.

Evaluating Methods of Calculating the Fixed Fee on Professional Service Contracts

The South Carolina Department of Transportation routinely retains Professional Consulting Engineering firms to provide engineering design and related professional services for the preparation of construction plans or design-build Request for Proposal bid packages for a wide variety of Federal-aid Highway Program roadway and bridge construction projects throughout South Carolina.The purpose of this project is to examine the current process of determining a "Fair and Reasonable" fixed fee for professional service contracts and to evaluate possible alternative methods including practices in other states that may improve the process, particularly in light of the considerable variation in audited overhead rates among consulting firms. In reviewing such alternative methods particular attention will be given to evaluating the potential impact of the method as an incentive to consulting firms to effectively manage their overhead costs.

Plan de mejoramiento del área comercial de la empresa cartonería Mosquera S. A.

Cartonería Mosquera S.A. es una empresa familiar, que se encarga de la producción y distribución de diferentes empaques de cartón. La compañía pertenece al sector de artes gráficas colombiano, que se desagrega en las siguientes categorías: empaques y etiquetas; publicidad y comercial; editoriales, periódicos y revistas. Cartonería Mosquera S.A. se encuentra en la categoría de empaques y etiquetas. A 2016 la empresa cuenta con un área que administra tanto el mercadeo como la parte comercial conjuntamente y que tiene como objetivo final la gestión de la publicidad, la satisfacción del cliente y la fidelización del mismo. Aunque desde sus inicios, la compañía ha venido trabajando con esta estructura y ha cumplido hasta ahora con algunos de los resultados esperados, los nuevos retos del mercado tales como; el compromiso con el medio ambiente, la necesidad de realizar registros que avalen la calidad de la compañía, la entrada de competidores internos como externos al mercado y el desarrollo de nuevos insumos, ha creado la necesidad de buscar nuevas herramientas que mejoren el desempeño del área comercial y promover así el incremento de las ventas. Este Trabajo surgió inicialmente con la idea de realizar un plan de mercadeo a fin de incentivar y proponer una estrategia que generara un impacto positivo en las ventas de la empresa. Sin embargo, en el proceso de desarrollo, se vio la necesidad de realizar primero un plan de mejoramiento con una orientación a la parte comercial de la compañía. Es importante resaltar que el enfoque de este documento investigativo no solo proveerá herramientas para el mejoramiento de las ventas y financiero, sino también pretende mejorar la percepción de los asesores comerciales hacia su trabajo, sus jefes y la compañía.

Plan de Negocios Bloompack

Bloompack nace a partir de la desaparición de una empresa que se dedicaba a la fabricación y comercialización de empaques para flores en el municipio de Cajicá, Cundinamarca y en la cual me desempeñaba como Jefe de Producción. Es decir, mi labor era recibir los pedidos que hacían las fincas floricultoras y responder por que la línea de producción elaborara la cantidad necesaria de empaques para cumplir con éstos. La producción se dará por fuente propia, se estableció la infraestructura necesaria para la elaboración de los empaques. Se adquirió la máquina para la elaboración de los empaques, una maquina que sella el plástico que se va a usar-polipropileno biorientado-y deja el empaque formado. De igual forma se adquirió media tonelada de plástico para atender los pedidos iniciales de los clientes. El establecimiento de la infraestructura de Bloompack significó una inversión inicial de $10’700.000.

Normalização automática de descrições de hotéis

As descrições de produtos turísticos na área da hotelaria, aviação, rent-a-car e pacotes de férias baseiam-se sobretudo em descrições textuais em língua natural muito heterogénea com estilos, apresentações e conteúdos muito diferentes entre si. Uma vez que o sector do turismo é bastante dinâmico e que os seus produtos e ofertas estão constantemente em alteração, o tratamento manual de normalização de toda essa informação não é possível. Neste trabalho construiu-se um protótipo que permite a classificação e extracção automática de informação a partir de descrições de produtos de turismo. Inicialmente a informação é classificada quanto ao tipo. Seguidamente são extraídos os elementos relevantes de cada tipo e gerados objectos facilmente computáveis. Sobre os objectos extraídos, o protótipo com recurso a modelos de textos e imagens gera automaticamente descrições normalizadas e orientadas a um determinado mercado. Esta versatilidade permite um novo conjunto de serviços na promoção e venda dos produtos que seria impossível implementar com a informação original. Este protótipo, embora possa ser aplicado a outros domínios, foi avaliado na normalização da descrição de hotéis. As frases descritivas do hotel são classificadas consoante o seu tipo (Local, Serviços e/ou Equipamento) através de um algoritmo de aprendizagem automática que obtém valores médios de cobertura de 96% e precisão de 72%. A cobertura foi considerada a medida mais importante uma vez que a sua maximização permite que não se percam frases para processamentos posteriores. Este trabalho permitiu também a construção e população de uma base de dados de hotéis que possibilita a pesquisa de hotéis pelas suas características. Esta funcionalidade não seria possível utilizando os conteúdos originais. ABSTRACT: The description of tourism products, like hotel, aviation, rent-a-car and holiday packages, is strongly supported on natural language expressions. Due to the extent of tourism offers and considering the high dynamics in the tourism sector, manual data management is not a reliable or scalable solution. Offer descriptions - in the order of thousands - are structured in different ways, possibly comprising different languages, complementing and/or overlap one another. This work aims at creating a prototype for the automatic classification and extraction of relevant knowledge from tourism-related text expressions. Captured knowledge is represented in a normalized/standard format to enable new services based on this information in order to promote and sale tourism products that would be impossible to implement with the raw information. Although it could be applied to other areas, this prototype was evaluated in the normalization of hotel descriptions. Hotels descriptive sentences are classified according their type (Location, Services and/or Equipment) using a machine learning algorithm. The built setting obtained an average recall of 96% and precision of 72%. Recall considered the most important measure of performance since its maximization allows that sentences were not lost in further processes. As a side product a database of hotels was built and populated with search facilities on its characteristics. This ability would not be possible using the original contents.

A robotic platform for precision agriculture and applications

Agricultural techniques have been improved over the centuries to match with the growing demand of an increase in global population. Farming applications are facing new challenges to satisfy global needs and the recent technology advancements in terms of robotic platforms can be exploited. As the orchard management is one of the most challenging applications because of its tree structure and the required interaction with the environment, it was targeted also by the University of Bologna research group to provide a customized solution addressing new concept for agricultural vehicles. The result of this research has blossomed into a new lightweight tracked vehicle capable of performing autonomous navigation both in the open-filed scenario and while travelling inside orchards for what has been called in-row navigation. The mechanical design concept, together with customized software implementation has been detailed to highlight the strengths of the platform and some further improvements envisioned to improve the overall performances. Static stability testing has proved that the vehicle can withstand steep slopes scenarios. Some improvements have also been investigated to refine the estimation of the slippage that occurs during turning maneuvers and that is typical of skid-steering tracked vehicles. The software architecture has been implemented using the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework, so to exploit community available packages related to common and basic functions, such as sensor interfaces, while allowing dedicated custom implementation of the navigation algorithm developed. Real-world testing inside the university’s experimental orchards have proven the robustness and stability of the solution with more than 800 hours of fieldwork. The vehicle has also enabled a wide range of autonomous tasks such as spraying, mowing, and on-the-field data collection capabilities. The latter can be exploited to automatically estimate relevant orchard properties such as fruit counting and sizing, canopy properties estimation, and autonomous fruit harvesting with post-harvesting estimations.