Prospects for whole genome linkage disequilibrium mapping in domestic dog breeds

Linkage disequilibrium (LD) mapping is commonly used as a fine mapping tool in human genome mapping and has been used with some success for initial disease gene isolation in certain isolated inbred human populations. An understanding of the population history of domestic dog breeds suggests that LID mapping could be routinely utilized in this species for initial genome-wide scans. Such an approach offers significant advantages over traditional linkage analysis. Here, we demonstrate, using canine copper toxicosis in the Bedlington terrier as the model, that LID mapping could be reasonably expected to be a useful strategy in low-resolution, genome-wide scans in pure-bred dogs. Significant LID was demonstrated over distances up to 33.3 cM. It is very unlikely, for a number of reasons discussed, that this result could be extrapolated to the rest of the genome. It is, however, consistent with the expectation given the population structure of canine breeds and, in this breed at least, with the hypothesis that it may be possible to utilize LID in a genome-wide scan. In this study, LD mapping confirmed the location of the copper toxicosis in Bedlington terrier gene (CT-BT) and was able to do so in a population that was refractory to traditional linkage analysis.

Mapping the royal road and other hierarchical functions

In this paper we present a technique for visualising hierarchical and symmetric, multimodal fitness functions that have been investigated in the evolutionary computation literature. The focus of this technique is on landscapes in moderate-dimensional, binary spaces (i.e., fitness functions defined over {0, 1}(n), for n less than or equal to 16). The visualisation approach involves an unfolding of the hyperspace into a two-dimensional graph, whose layout represents the topology of the space using a recursive relationship, and whose shading defines the shape of the cost surface defined on the space. Using this technique we present case-study explorations of three fitness functions: royal road, hierarchical-if-and-only-if (H-IFF), and hierarchically decomposable functions (HDF). The visualisation approach provides an insight into the properties of these functions, particularly with respect to the size and shape of the basins of attraction around each of the local optima.

Variabilidade espacial e temporal de atributos químicos do solo em povoamento de eucalipto

Nos anos mais recentes, observa-se aumento na adoção das técnicas de silvicultura de precisão em florestas plantadas no Brasil. Os plantios de eucalipto ocorrem preferencialmente em áreas com baixa fertilidade de solo e consequentemente baixa produtividade. Logo, para otimizar ao máximo a produção, é necessário saber o quanto essa cultura pode produzir em cada local (sítio). Objetivou-se aplicar uma metodologia que utiliza técnicas de estatística, geoestatística e geoprocessamento, no mapeamento da variabilidade espacial e temporal de atributos químicos do solo cultivado com eucalipto, em área de 10,09 ha, situada no sul do estado do Espírito Santo. Os atributos químicos da fertilidade do solo estudados foram: fósforo (P), potássio (K), cálcio (Ca) e magnésio (Mg), no ano da implantação do povoamento do eucalipto, em 2008, e três anos após, em 2011. O solo foi amostrado em duas profundidades, 0-0,2 m e 0,2-0,4 m, nos 94 pontos de uma malha regular, com extensão de 33 x 33 m. Os dados foram analisados pela estatística descritiva e, em seguida, pela geoestatística, por meio do ajuste de semivariogramas. Diferentes métodos de interpolação foram testados para produzir mapas temáticos mais precisos e facilitar as operações algébricas utilizadas. Com o auxílio de índices quantitativos, realizou-se uma análise geral da fertilidade do solo, por meio da álgebra de mapas. A metodologia utilizada neste estudo possibilitou mapear a variabilidade espacial e temporal de atributos químicos do solo. A análise variográfica mostrou que todos os atributos estudados apresentaram-se estruturados espacialmente, exceto para o atributo P, no Ano Zero (camada 0-0,2 m) e no Ano Três (ambas as camadas). Os melhores métodos de interpolação para o mapeamento de cada atributo químico do solo foram identificados com a ajuda gráfica do Diagrama de Taylor. Mereceram destaque, os modelos esférico e exponencial nas interpolações para a maioria dos atributos químicos do solo avaliados. Apesar de a variação espacial e temporal dos atributos estudados apresentar-se, em média, com pequena variação negativa, a metodologia usada mostrou variações positivas na fertilidade do solo em várias partes da área de estudo. Além disso, os resultados demonstram que os efeitos observados são majoritariamente em função da cultura, uma vez que não foram coletadas amostras de solo em locais adubados. A produtividade do sítio florestal apresentou-se com tendências semelhantes às variações ocorridas na fertilidade do solo, exceto para o magnésio, que se mostrou com tendências espaciais para suporte de elevadas produtividades, de até 50 m3 ha-1 ano-1. Além de mostrar claramente as tendências observadas para as variações na fertilidade do solo, a metodologia utilizada confirma um caminho operacional acessível para empresas e produtores florestais para o manejo nutricional em florestas plantadas. O uso dos mapas facilita a mobilização de recursos para melhorar a aplicação de fertilizantes e corretivos necessários.

Mapping the Obama administration's response to the Arab Spring

When the Arab Spring broke out, the United States was in a quandary over how to handle the crisis in its attempt to balance its moral obligations and ideals without undercutting its strategic interests and those of its close allies. Flaws in US diplomatic approach have contributed to one of the most serious foreign policy crisis for a US administration to date with consequential upheaval and erosion of the US-built balance of power. The reactions and policy responses of the Obama administration highlight the difficulties in grasping with the new reality in the Middle East and in enunciating a policy platform that could combine American interests and values.

Piezoresistive sensors for force mapping of hip-prostheses

The success of artificial prosthetic replacements depends on the fixation of the artificial prosthetic component after being implanted in the thighbone. The materials for fixation are subject to mechanical stresses, which originate permanent deformations, incipient cracks and even fatigue fractures. This work shows the possibility of monitoring the mechanical stress over time in prosthesis. In this way, highly sensitive silicon thin-film piezoresistive sensors were developed attached to prosthesis and their results compared with commercial strain gauge sensors. Mechanical stress-strain experiments were performed in compressive mode, during 10,000 cycles. Experimental data was acquired at mechanical vibration frequencies of 0.5 Hz, 1 Hz and 5 Hz, and sent to a computer by means of a wireless link. The results show that there is a decrease in sensitivity of the thin-film silicon piezoresistive sensors when they are attached to the prosthesis, but this decrease does not compromise its monitoring performance. The sensitivity, compared to that of commercial strain gauges, is much larger due to their higher gauge factors (-23.5), when compared to the GFs of commercial sensors (2).

Mapping Culture and Compromised Art in the Era of Globalization

This work presents an analysis of the cultural and artistic field, positively compromised with social and political questions. The authors start with the categorization of the idea of culture and move to vindication art movements. These movements, which followed the first vanguards and worked from the compromise with “otherness”, are at the origin of the contemporary denomination of political art. In this context, the authors approach the origins of activist art, referring to issues of gender, multiculturalism, globalization, and poverty. The different forms of presenting content are also an object of analysis: from art tradition to the contamination of daily life, from local to global, from street contact to digital.

Using different satellite imagery and classification techniques to assess the contribution of trees outside forests in the municipality of Maringá, Brazil

Forest cover of the Maringá municipality, located in northern Parana State, was mapped in this study. Mapping was carried out by using high-resolution HRC sensor imagery and medium resolution CCD sensor imagery from the CBERS satellite. Images were georeferenced and forest vegetation patches (TOFs - trees outside forests) were classified using two methods of digital classification: reflectance-based or the digital number of each pixel, and object-oriented. The areas of each polygon were calculated, which allowed each polygon to be segregated into size classes. Thematic maps were built from the resulting polygon size classes and summary statistics generated from each size class for each area. It was found that most forest fragments in Maringá were smaller than 500 m². There was also a difference of 58.44% in the amount of vegetation between the high-resolution imagery and medium resolution imagery due to the distinct spatial resolution of the sensors. It was concluded that high-resolution geotechnology is essential to provide reliable information on urban greens and forest cover under highly human-perturbed landscapes.

Geostatistical Mapping of Outfall Plume Dispersion Data gathered with an autonomous underwater vehicle

The main purpose of this study was to examine the applicability of geostatistical modeling to obtain valuable information for assessing the environmental impact of sewage outfall discharges. The data set used was obtained in a monitoring campaign to S. Jacinto outfall, located off the Portuguese west coast near Aveiro region, using an AUV. The Matheron’s classical estimator was used the compute the experimental semivariogram which was fitted to three theoretical models: spherical, exponential and gaussian. The cross-validation procedure suggested the best semivariogram model and ordinary kriging was used to obtain the predictions of salinity at unknown locations. The generated map shows clearly the plume dispersion in the studied area, indicating that the effluent does not reach the near by beaches. Our study suggests that an optimal design for the AUV sampling trajectory from a geostatistical prediction point of view, can help to compute more precise predictions and hence to quantify more accurately dilution. Moreover, since accurate measurements of plume’s dilution are rare, these studies might be very helpful in the future for validation of dispersion models.

Mapping atmospheric pollutants emissions in European countries

In this paper we present a methodology which enables the graphical representation, in a bi-dimensional Euclidean space, of atmospheric pollutants emissions in European countries. This approach relies on the use of Multidimensional Unfolding (MDU), an exploratory multivariate data analysis technique. This technique illustrates both the relationships between the emitted gases and the gases and their geographical origins. The main contribution of this work concerns the evaluation of MDU solutions. We use simulated data to define thresholds for the model fitting measures, allowing the MDU output quality evaluation. The quality assessment of the model adjustment is thus carried out as a step before interpretation of the gas types and geographical origins results. The MDU maps analysis generates useful insights, with an immediate substantive result and enables the formulation of hypotheses for further analysis and modeling.

Mapping multi-species habitat use for marine conservation planning

Tese de Doutoramento, Ciências do Mar (Biologia Marinha)

Mapping stability : real rational maps of degree zero

In memory of our beloved Professor José Rodrigues Santos de Sousa Ramos (1948-2007), who João Cabral, one of the authors of this paper, had the honor of being his student between 2000 and 2006, we wrote this paper following the research by experimentation, using the new technologies to capture a new insight about a problem, as him so much love to do it. His passion was to create new relations between different fields of mathematics. He was a builder of bridges of knowledge, encouraging the birth of new ways to understand this science. One of the areas that Sousa Ramos researched was the iteration of maps and the description of its behavior, using the symbolic dynamics. So, in this issue of this journal, honoring his memory, we use experimental results to find some stable regions of a specific family of real rational maps, the ones that he worked with João Cabral. In this paper we describe a parameter space (a,b) to the real rational maps fa,b(x) = (x2 −a)/(x2 −b), using some tools of dynamical systems, as the study of the critical point orbit and Lyapunov exponents. We give some results regarding the stability of these family of maps when we iterate it, specially the ones connected to the order 3 of iteration. We hope that our results would help to understand better the behavior of these maps, preparing the ground to a more efficient use of the Kneading Theory on these family of maps, using symbolic dynamics.

Mapping non-suicidal self-injury in adolescence: Development and confirmatory factor analysis of the impulse, self-harm and sucidal ideation questionnaire for adolescents (ISSIQ-A)

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent and an important clinical phenomenon. Rates of NSSI appear to be disproportionately high in adolescents and young adults, and is a risk factor for suicidal ideation and behavior. The present study reports the psychometric properties of the Impulse, Self-harm and Suicide Ideation Questionnaire for Adolescents (ISSIQ-A), a measure designed to comprehensively assess the impulsivity, NSSI behaviors and suicide ideation. An additional module of this questionnaire assesses the functions of NSSI. Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the scale on 1722 youths showed items' suitability and confirmed a model of four different dimensions (Impulse, Self-harm, Risk-behavior and Suicide ideation) with good fit and validity. Further analysis showed that youth׳s engagement in self-harm may exert two different functions: to create or alleviate emotional states, and to influence social relationships. Our findings contribute to research and assessment on non-suicidal self-injury, suggesting that the ISSIQ-A is a valid and reliable measure to assess impulse, self-harm and suicidal thoughts, in adolescence.

Ontology mapping evolution

Introdução Hoje em dia, o conceito de ontologia (Especificação explícita de uma conceptualização [Gruber, 1993]) é um conceito chave em sistemas baseados em conhecimento em geral e na Web Semântica em particular. Entretanto, os agentes de software nem sempre concordam com a mesma conceptualização, justificando assim a existência de diversas ontologias, mesmo que tratando o mesmo domínio de discurso. Para resolver/minimizar o problema de interoperabilidade entre estes agentes, o mapeamento de ontologias provou ser uma boa solução. O mapeamento de ontologias é o processo onde são especificadas relações semânticas entre entidades da ontologia origem e destino ao nível conceptual, e que por sua vez podem ser utilizados para transformar instâncias baseadas na ontologia origem em instâncias baseadas na ontologia destino. Motivação Num ambiente dinâmico como a Web Semântica, os agentes alteram não só os seus dados mas também a sua estrutura e semântica (ontologias). Este processo, denominado evolução de ontologias, pode ser definido como uma adaptação temporal da ontologia através de alterações que surgem no domínio ou nos objectivos da própria ontologia, e da gestão consistente dessas alterações [Stojanovic, 2004], podendo por vezes deixar o documento de mapeamento inconsistente. Em ambientes heterogéneos onde a interoperabilidade entre sistemas depende do documento de mapeamento, este deve reflectir as alterações efectuadas nas ontologias, existindo neste caso duas soluções: (i) gerar um novo documento de mapeamento (processo exigente em termos de tempo e recursos computacionais) ou (ii) adaptar o documento de mapeamento, corrigindo relações semânticas inválidas e criar novas relações se forem necessárias (processo menos existente em termos de tempo e recursos computacionais, mas muito dependente da informação sobre as alterações efectuadas). O principal objectivo deste trabalho é a análise, especificação e desenvolvimento do processo de evolução do documento de mapeamento de forma a reflectir as alterações efectuadas durante o processo de evolução de ontologias. Contexto Este trabalho foi desenvolvido no contexto do MAFRA Toolkit1. O MAFRA (MApping FRAmework) Toolkit é uma aplicação desenvolvida no GECAD2 que permite a especificação declarativa de relações semânticas entre entidades de uma ontologia origem e outra de destino, utilizando os seguintes componentes principais: Concept Bridge – Representa uma relação semântica entre um conceito de origem e um de destino; Property Bridge – Representa uma relação semântica entre uma ou mais propriedades de origem e uma ou mais propriedades de destino; Service – São aplicados às Semantic Bridges (Property e Concept Bridges) definindo como as instâncias origem devem ser transformadas em instâncias de destino. Estes conceitos estão especificados na ontologia SBO (Semantic Bridge Ontology) [Silva, 2004]. No contexto deste trabalho, um documento de mapeamento é uma instanciação do SBO, contendo relações semânticas entre entidades da ontologia de origem e da ontologia de destino. Processo de evolução do mapeamento O processo de evolução de mapeamento é o processo onde as entidades do documento de mapeamento são adaptadas, reflectindo eventuais alterações nas ontologias mapeadas, tentando o quanto possível preservar a semântica das relações semântica especificadas. Se as ontologias origem e/ou destino sofrerem alterações, algumas relações semânticas podem tornar-se inválidas, ou novas relações serão necessárias, sendo por isso este processo composto por dois sub-processos: (i) correcção de relações semânticas e (ii) processamento de novas entidades das ontologias. O processamento de novas entidades das ontologias requer a descoberta e cálculo de semelhanças entre entidades e a especificação de relações de acordo com a ontologia/linguagem SBO. Estas fases (“similarity measure” e “semantic bridging”) são implementadas no MAFRA Toolkit, sendo o processo (semi-) automático de mapeamento de ontologias descrito em [Silva, 2004].O processo de correcção de entidades SBO inválidas requer um bom conhecimento da ontologia/linguagem SBO, das suas entidades e relações, e de todas as suas restrições, i.e. da sua estrutura e semântica. Este procedimento consiste em (i) identificar as entidades SBO inválidas, (ii) a causa da sua invalidez e (iii) corrigi-las da melhor forma possível. Nesta fase foi utilizada informação vinda do processo de evolução das ontologias com o objectivo de melhorar a qualidade de todo o processo. Conclusões Para além do processo de evolução do mapeamento desenvolvido, um dos pontos mais importantes deste trabalho foi a aquisição de um conhecimento mais profundo sobre ontologias, processo de evolução de ontologias, mapeamento etc., expansão dos horizontes de conhecimento, adquirindo ainda mais a consciência da complexidade do problema em questão, o que permite antever e perspectivar novos desafios para o futuro.

Application mapping in NoC-Based many-cores

Many-core platforms based on Network-on-Chip (NoC [Benini and De Micheli 2002]) present an emerging technology in the real-time embedded domain. Although the idea to group the applications previously executed on separated single-core devices, and accommodate them on an individual many-core chip offers various options for power savings, cost reductions and contributes to the overall system flexibility, its implementation is a non-trivial task. In this paper we address the issue of application mapping onto a NoCbased many-core platform when considering fundamentals and trends of current many-core operating systems, specifically, we elaborate on a limited migrative application model encompassing a message-passing paradigm as a communication primitive. As the main contribution, we formulate the problem of real-time application mapping, and propose a three-stage process to efficiently solve it. Through analysis it is assured that derived solutions guarantee the fulfilment of posed time constraints regarding worst-case communication latencies, and at the same time provide an environment to perform load balancing for e.g. thermal, energy, fault tolerance or performance reasons.We also propose several constraints regarding the topological structure of the application mapping, as well as the inter- and intra-application communication patterns, which efficiently solve the issues of pessimism and/or intractability when performing the analysis.

Is multidimensional scaling suitable for mapping the input respiratory impedance in subjects and patients?

This paper presents the application of multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis to data emerging from noninvasive lung function tests, namely the input respiratory impedance. The aim is to obtain a geometrical mapping of the diseases in a 3D space representation, allowing analysis of (dis)similarities between subjects within the same pathology groups, as well as between the various groups. The adult patient groups investigated were healthy, diagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diagnosed kyphoscoliosis, respectively. The children patient groups were healthy, asthma and cystic fibrosis. The results suggest that MDS can be successfully employed for mapping purposes of restrictive (kyphoscoliosis) and obstructive (COPD) pathologies. Hence, MDS tools can be further examined to define clear limits between pools of patients for clinical classification, and used as a training aid for medical traineeship.