Time-frequency and time-scale characterisation of the beat-by-beat high-resolution electrocardiogram

Proceedings of the Sixth Portuguese Conference on Bioemedical Engineering faro, Portugal

Terminology and knowledge engineering conference. New frontiers in the constructive symbiosis of terminology and knowledge engineering

To meet the increasing demands of the complex inter-organizational processes and the demand for continuous innovation and internationalization, it is evident that new forms of organisation are being adopted, fostering more intensive collaboration processes and sharing of resources, in what can be called collaborative networks (Camarinha-Matos, 2006:03). Information and knowledge are crucial resources in collaborative networks, being their management fundamental processes to optimize. Knowledge organisation and collaboration systems are thus important instruments for the success of collaborative networks of organisations having been researched in the last decade in the areas of computer science, information science, management sciences, terminology and linguistics. Nevertheless, research in this area didn’t give much attention to multilingual contexts of collaboration, which pose specific and challenging problems. It is then clear that access to and representation of knowledge will happen more and more on a multilingual setting which implies the overcoming of difficulties inherent to the presence of multiple languages, through the use of processes like localization of ontologies. Although localization, like other processes that involve multilingualism, is a rather well-developed practice and its methodologies and tools fruitfully employed by the language industry in the development and adaptation of multilingual content, it has not yet been sufficiently explored as an element of support to the development of knowledge representations - in particular ontologies - expressed in more than one language. Multilingual knowledge representation is then an open research area calling for cross-contributions from knowledge engineering, terminology, ontology engineering, cognitive sciences, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and management sciences. This workshop joined researchers interested in multilingual knowledge representation, in a multidisciplinary environment to debate the possibilities of cross-fertilization between knowledge engineering, terminology, ontology engineering, cognitive sciences, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and management sciences applied to contexts where multilingualism continuously creates new and demanding challenges to current knowledge representation methods and techniques. In this workshop six papers dealing with different approaches to multilingual knowledge representation are presented, most of them describing tools, approaches and results obtained in the development of ongoing projects. In the first case, Andrés Domínguez Burgos, Koen Kerremansa and Rita Temmerman present a software module that is part of a workbench for terminological and ontological mining, Termontospider, a wiki crawler that aims at optimally traverse Wikipedia in search of domainspecific texts for extracting terminological and ontological information. The crawler is part of a tool suite for automatically developing multilingual termontological databases, i.e. ontologicallyunderpinned multilingual terminological databases. In this paper the authors describe the basic principles behind the crawler and summarized the research setting in which the tool is currently tested. In the second paper, Fumiko Kano presents a work comparing four feature-based similarity measures derived from cognitive sciences. The purpose of the comparative analysis presented by the author is to verify the potentially most effective model that can be applied for mapping independent ontologies in a culturally influenced domain. For that, datasets based on standardized pre-defined feature dimensions and values, which are obtainable from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) have been used for the comparative analysis of the similarity measures. The purpose of the comparison is to verify the similarity measures based on the objectively developed datasets. According to the author the results demonstrate that the Bayesian Model of Generalization provides for the most effective cognitive model for identifying the most similar corresponding concepts existing for a targeted socio-cultural community. In another presentation, Thierry Declerck, Hans-Ulrich Krieger and Dagmar Gromann present an ongoing work and propose an approach to automatic extraction of information from multilingual financial Web resources, to provide candidate terms for building ontology elements or instances of ontology concepts. The authors present a complementary approach to the direct localization/translation of ontology labels, by acquiring terminologies through the access and harvesting of multilingual Web presences of structured information providers in the field of finance, leading to both the detection of candidate terms in various multilingual sources in the financial domain that can be used not only as labels of ontology classes and properties but also for the possible generation of (multilingual) domain ontologies themselves. In the next paper, Manuel Silva, António Lucas Soares and Rute Costa claim that despite the availability of tools, resources and techniques aimed at the construction of ontological artifacts, developing a shared conceptualization of a given reality still raises questions about the principles and methods that support the initial phases of conceptualization. These questions become, according to the authors, more complex when the conceptualization occurs in a multilingual setting. To tackle these issues the authors present a collaborative platform – conceptME - where terminological and knowledge representation processes support domain experts throughout a conceptualization framework, allowing the inclusion of multilingual data as a way to promote knowledge sharing and enhance conceptualization and support a multilingual ontology specification. In another presentation Frieda Steurs and Hendrik J. Kockaert present us TermWise, a large project dealing with legal terminology and phraseology for the Belgian public services, i.e. the translation office of the ministry of justice, a project which aims at developing an advanced tool including expert knowledge in the algorithms that extract specialized language from textual data (legal documents) and whose outcome is a knowledge database including Dutch/French equivalents for legal concepts, enriched with the phraseology related to the terms under discussion. Finally, Deborah Grbac, Luca Losito, Andrea Sada and Paolo Sirito report on the preliminary results of a pilot project currently ongoing at UCSC Central Library, where they propose to adapt to subject librarians, employed in large and multilingual Academic Institutions, the model used by translators working within European Union Institutions. The authors are using User Experience (UX) Analysis in order to provide subject librarians with a visual support, by means of “ontology tables” depicting conceptual linking and connections of words with concepts presented according to their semantic and linguistic meaning. The organizers hope that the selection of papers presented here will be of interest to a broad audience, and will be a starting point for further discussion and cooperation.

Off-the-person electrocardiography: performance assessment and clinical correlation

Previous work by our group introduced a novel concept and sensor design for “off-the-person” ECG, for which evidence on how it compares against standard clinical-grade equipment has been largely missing. Our objectives with this work are to characterise the off-the-person approach in light of the current ECG systems landscape, and assess how the signals acquired using this simplified setup compare with clinical-grade recordings. Empirical tests have been performed with real-world data collected from a population of 38 control subjects, to analyze the correlation between both approaches. Results show off-the-person data to be correlated with clinical-grade data, demonstrating the viability of this approach to potentially extend preventive medicine practices by enabling the integration of ECG monitoring into multiple dimensions of people’s everyday lives. © 2015, IUPESM and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Design and implementation of 3D buildings integration for a Webgl-Based Virtual Globe: a case study of Valencian Cadastre and Fide Building Mode

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Public Participation geographic information systems in developing countries: lessons from Uganda on the impacts of interactive screens PPGIS and community perceptions of space

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

In search of a language textile and text in contemporary women's art

This research uses the textile/text axis concept as a conceptual tool to investigate the role of textile and text in contemporary women’s art practice and theorizing, investigating textile as a largely hitherto unacknowledged element in women’s art practice of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Textile and text share a common etymological root, from the Latin textere to weave, textus a fabric. The thesis illuminates the pathways whereby textile and text played an important role in women reclaiming a speaking voice as creators of culture and signification during a revolutionary period of renewal in women’s cultural contribution and positioning. The methodological approach used in the research consisted of a comprehensive literature review, the compilation of an inventory of relevant women artists, developing a classificatory system differentiating types of approaches, concerns and concepts underpinning women’s art practice vis a vis the textile/text axis and a series of three in-depth case studies of artists Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois and Faith Ringgold. The thesis points to the fact that contemporary women artists and theorists have rounded their art practice and aesthetic discourse in textile as prime visual metaphor and signifier, turning towards the ancient language of textile not merely to reclaim a speaking voice but to occupy a ground breaking locus of signification and representation in contemporary culture. The textile/text axis facilitated women artists in powerfully countering a culturally inscribed status of Lacanian ‘no-woman’ (a position of abjection, absence and lack in the phallocentric symbolic). Turning towards a language of aeons, textile as fertile wellspring, the thesis identifies the methodologies and strategies whereby women artists have inserted their webs of subjectivities and deepest concerns into the records and discourses of contemporary culture. Presenting an anatomy of the textile/text axis, the thesis identifies nine component elements manifesting in contemporary women’s aesthetic practice and discourse. In this cultural renaissance, the textile/text axis, the thesis suggests, served as a complex lexicon, a system of labyrinthine references and signification, a site of layered meanings and ambiguities, a body proxy and a corporeal cartography, facilitating a revolution in women’s aesthetic praxis.

Evaluating sampling strategies and logistic regression methods for modelling complex land cover changes

The role of land cover change as a significant component of global change has become increasingly recognized in recent decades. Large databases measuring land cover change, and the data which can potentially be used to explain the observed changes, are also becoming more commonly available. When developing statistical models to investigate observed changes, it is important to be aware that the chosen sampling strategy and modelling techniques can influence results. We present a comparison of three sampling strategies and two forms of grouped logistic regression models (multinomial and ordinal) in the investigation of patterns of successional change after agricultural land abandonment in Switzerland. Results indicated that both ordinal and nominal transitional change occurs in the landscape and that the use of different sampling regimes and modelling techniques as investigative tools yield different results. Synthesis and applications. Our multimodel inference identified successfully a set of consistently selected indicators of land cover change, which can be used to predict further change, including annual average temperature, the number of already overgrown neighbouring areas of land and distance to historically destructive avalanche sites. This allows for more reliable decision making and planning with respect to landscape management. Although both model approaches gave similar results, ordinal regression yielded more parsimonious models that identified the important predictors of land cover change more efficiently. Thus, this approach is favourable where land cover change pattern can be interpreted as an ordinal process. Otherwise, multinomial logistic regression is a viable alternative.

Water scarcity, social power and the production of an elite suburb: the political ecology of water in Matadepera, Catalonia

This article investigates the history of land and water transformations in Matadepera, a wealthy suburb of metropolitan Barcelona. Analysis is informed by theories of political ecology and methods of environmental history; although very relevant, these have received relatively little attention within ecological economics. Empirical material includes communications from the City Archives of Matadepera (1919-1979), 17 interviews with locals born between 1913 and 1958, and an exhaustive review of grey historical literature. Existing water histories of Barcelona and its outskirts portray a battle against natural water scarcity, hard won by heroic engineers and politicians acting for the good of the community. Our research in Matadepera tells a very different story. We reveal the production of a highly uneven landscape and waterscape through fierce political and power struggles. The evolution of Matadepera from a small rural village to an elite suburb was anything but spontaneous or peaceful. It was a socio-environmental project well intended by landowning elites and heavily fought by others. The struggle for the control of water went hand in hand with the land and political struggles that culminated – and were violently resolved - in the Spanish Civil War. The displacement of the economic and environmental costs of water use from few to many continues to this day and is constitutive of Matadepera’s uneven and unsustainable landscape. By unravelling the relations of power that are inscribed in the urbanization of nature (Swyngedouw, 2004), we question the perceived wisdoms of contemporary water policy debates, particularly the notion of a natural scarcity that merits a technical or economic response. We argue that the water question is fundamentally a political question of environmental justice; it is about negotiating alternative visions of the future and deciding whose visions will be produced.

Perceptions of Europe in political and economic elites: a geographical compared analysis of Germany, Spain and Poland

Elite perceptions about Europe are a very important point in order to understand the current European integration process, as well as the future perspectives for the continent. This study makes a comparison between the perceptions which political and economical elites in some European countries have about the European Union process and its mechanisms. The main goal is to identify the differences in positions of each type of elites, as well as the variations among three key countries. The database built thanks to the INTUNE (Integrated and United? A quest for Citizenship in an ¨ever closer Europe¨) Project Survey on European Elites and Masses, funded by the Sixth Framework Programme of the EU [Contract CIT 3-CT-2005-513421] have being used. The questionnaire was applied between February and May 2007, in a total of 18 European countries. The national teams got a total of almost 2000 valid responses at European level. In the analysis we have showed some general descriptive statistics about the perception of Europe taking as a reference two dimensions of the INTUNE project: identity (attachment to the national level, the meaning of being a truly national, and the threats from Turkey that EU is facing at this moment) and representation (trust in European and national institutions, preferences for a national or an European army). The results are presented distinguishing between political (national MP’s in low chambers) and economical elites (presidents of corporations, general managers…) and, at the same time, among three countries: Germany as an original member of the European Union; Spain, incorporated in 1986; and a new member, Poland, joining the EU in 2004.

Les ciutats turístiques, les noves ciutats. Anàlisi de l'evolució del model turístic en destinacions de litoral madures a partir de l'anàlisi de paràmetres urbanístics

La beca concedida ha anat destinada a desenvolupar la tesi doctoral que duu per nom "Les ciutats turístiques, les noves ciutats. Anàlisi de l'evolució del model turístic en destinacions de litoral madures a partir de l'anàlisi de paràmetres urbanístics". L’àrea d’estudi comprèn els municipis de Cambrils, Salou i La Pineda (Vila-seca) que conformen la Costa Daurada central, destinació madura de litoral mediterrani, que basa el seu desenvolupament d’acord el model turístic de sol i platja. Arribats en aquest punt de finalització de la beca, cal destacar que s’ha complert amb l'objectiu d'analitzar el procés de transformació de les ciutats turístiques, tot establint com el turisme litoral mediterrani s'ha convertit en un factor de creació de ciutat. Així mateix també s'han complert els objectius específics tals com: analitzar l'evolució de les destinacions turístiques consolidades del litoral mediterrani, recopilar informació per a la creació d'índexs i eines que serveixin per l'anàlisi del procés de tranformació de les ciutats turístiques a ciutats tradicionals a partir del tractament dels plans parcials, recopilar i analitzar les polítiques de planificació que han condicionat l'area d'estudi, modelitzar el procés de construcció de l'espai turístic a partir de l'establiment d'unes unitats bàsiques en la descripció i anàlisi territorial i paisatgístic, i crear un SIG per culminar el procés d'anàlisi tot creant una base de dades i la representació dels resultats en cartogradia temàtica. Pel que fa al disseny i l’execució de la metodologia, es poden considerar dos vessants, una vessant més qualitativa i una altra més quantitativa per al tractament de la informació recopilada. Igualment la generació de cartografia específica completa el procés amb la producció de cartografia específica, tal i com es desenvolupa en la present memòria. La tesi parteix del guió que contempla: un prier capítol d'introducció, un segon dedicat al marc teòric, un tercer apartat on s'exposaran les hipòtesis de les quals es parteix, i un quart dedicat a la metodologia. Pren especial importància l'apartat dedicat a l’ànalisi, així com el dedicat a la discussió dels resultats obtinguts, que es desenvoluparà en el sisè apartat. Per últim resta destacar el setè apartat dedicat a les conclusions a les que s'ha arribat.

Map of ecological networks for landscape planning

This paper presents a method based on a geographical information system (GIS) to model ecological networks in a fragmented landscape. The ecological networks are generated with the help of a landscape model (which integrate human activities) and with a wildlife dispersal model. The main results are maps which permit the analysis and the understanding of the impact of human activities on wildlife dispersal. Three applications in a study area are presented: ecological networks at the landscape scale, conflicting areas at the farmstead scale and ecological distance between biotopes. These applications show the flexibility of the model and its potential to give information on ecological networks at different planning scales.

Mapping the proteome of Leishmania Viannia parasites using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and associated technologies.

In this study we have demonstrated the potential of two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE)-based technologies as tools for characterization of the Leishmania proteome (the expressed protein complement of the genome). Standardized neutral range (pH 5-7) proteome maps of Leishmania (Viannia) guyanensis and Leishmania (Viannia) panamensis promastigotes were reproducibly generated by 2DE of soluble parasite extracts, which were prepared using lysis buffer containing urea and nonidet P-40 detergent. The Coomassie blue and silver nitrate staining systems both yielded good resolution and representation of protein spots, enabling the detection of approximately 800 and 1,500 distinct proteins, respectively. Several reference protein spots common to the proteomes of all parasite species/strains studied were isolated and identified by peptide mass spectrometry (LC-ES-MS/MS), and bioinformatics approaches as members of the heat shock protein family, ribosomal protein S12, kinetoplast membrane protein 11 and a hypothetical Leishmania-specific 13 kDa protein of unknown function. Immunoblotting of Leishmania protein maps using a monoclonal antibody resulted in the specific detection of the 81.4 kDa and 77.5 kDa subunits of paraflagellar rod proteins 1 and 2, respectively. Moreover, differences in protein expression profiles between distinct parasite clones were reproducibly detected through comparative proteome analyses of paired maps using image analysis software. These data illustrate the resolving power of 2DE-based proteome analysis. The production and basic characterization of good quality Leishmania proteome maps provides an essential first step towards comparative protein expression studies aimed at identifying the molecular determinants of parasite drug resistance and virulence, as well as discovering new drug and vaccine targets.

Movement, impacts and management of plant distributions in response to climate change: insights from invasions

A major challenge in this era of rapid climate change is to predict changes in species distributions and their impacts on ecosystems, and, if necessary, to recommend management strategies for maintenance of biodiversity or ecosystem services. Biological invasions, studied in most biomes of the world, can provide useful analogs for some of the ecological consequences of species distribution shifts in response to climate change. Invasions illustrate the adaptive and interactive responses that can occur when species are confronted with new environmental conditions. Invasion ecology complements climate change research and provides insights into the following questions: i) how will species distributions respond to climate change? ii) how will species movement affect recipient ecosystems? and iii) should we, and if so how can we, manage species and ecosystems in the face of climate change? Invasion ecology demonstrates that a trait-based approach can help to predict spread speeds and impacts on ecosystems, and has the potential to predict climate change impacts on species ranges and recipient ecosystems. However, there is a need to analyse traits in the context of life-history and demography, the stage in the colonisation process (e.g., spread, establishment or impact), the distribution of suitable habitats in the landscape, and the novel abiotic and biotic conditions under which those traits are expressed. As is the case with climate change, invasion ecology is embedded within complex societal goals. Both disciplines converge on similar questions of "when to intervene?" and "what to do?" which call for a better understanding of the ecological processes and social values associated with changing ecosystems.

Soil and Water Conservation Strategies in Cape Verde (Cabo Verde in Portuguese) and Their Impacts on Livelihoods - An Overview from the Ribeira Seca Watershed

Severe land degradation has strongly affected both people’s livelihood and the environment in Cape Verde (Cabo Verde in Portuguese), a natural resource poor country. Despite the enormous investment in soil and water conservation measures (SWC or SLM), which are visible throughout the landscape, and the recognition of their benefits, their biophysical and socioeconomic impacts have been poorly assessed and scientifically documented. This paper contributes to filling this gap, by bringing together insights from literature and policy review, field survey and participatory assessment in the Ribeira Seca Watershed through a concerted approach devised by the DESIRE project (the “Desire approach”). Specifically, we analyze government strategies towards building resilience against the harsh conditions, analyze the state of land degradation and its drivers, survey and map the existing SWC measures, and assess their effectiveness against land degradation, on crop yield and people’s livelihood. We infer that the relative success of Cape Verde in tackling desertification and rural poverty owes to an integrated governance strategy that comprises raising awareness, institutional framework development, financial resource allocation, capacity building, and active participation of rural communities. We recommend that specific, scientific-based monitoring and assessment studies be carried out on the biophysical and socioeconomic impact of SLM and that the “Desire approach” be scaled-up to other watersheds in the country.

Cognition and brain function in schizotypy : a selective review

Schizotypy refers to a set of personality traits thought to reflect the subclinical expression of the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia. Here, we review the cognitive and brain functional profile associated with high questionnaire scores in schizotypy. We discuss empirical evidence from the domains of perception, attention, memory, imagery and representation, language, and motor control. Perceptual deficits occur early and across various modalities. Whilst the neural mechanisms underlying visual impairments may be linked to magnocellular dysfunction, further effects may be seen downstream in higher cognitive functions. Cognitive deficits are observed in inhibitory control, selective and sustained attention, incidental learning and memory. In concordance with the cognitive nature of many of the aberrations of schizotypy, higher levels of schizotypy are associated with enhanced vividness and better performance on tasks of mental rotation. Language deficits seem most pronounced in higher-level processes. Finally, higher levels of schizotypy are associated with reduced performance on oculomotor tasks, resembling the impairments seen in schizophrenia. Some of these deficits are accompanied by reduced brain activation, akin to the pattern of hypoactivations in schizophrenia spectrum individuals. We conclude that schizotypy is a construct with apparent phenomenological overlap with schizophrenia and stable inter-individual differences that covary with performance on a wide range of perceptual, cognitive and motor tasks known to be impaired in schizophrenia. The importance of these findings lies not only in providing a fine-grained neurocognitive characterisation of a personality constellation known to be associated with real-life impairments, but also in generating hypotheses concerning the aetiology of schizophrenia.