2009
Authors
Osswald, J; Carvalho, AP; Claro, J; Vasconcelos, V;
Publication
ECOTOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY
Abstract
This study compares the effects of pure anatoxin-a and cyanobacterial extracts of an anatoxin-a producing strain on early stages of development of carp. Carp eggs were exposed from 2:30 h to 4 days post-fertilization to different ecologically relevant concentrations of anatoxin-a, provided as pure toxin or contained in the cyanobacterial extracts. Data on time to mortality, mortality rate, time to hatching, hatching rate, skeletal malformations rate, and larval standard length were registered until 8 days post-fertilization. At any tested concentration of anatoxin-a, the pure toxin was almost harmless to carp early stages of development, contrarily to cell extracts that were highly toxic. Only an adverse effect on the larval length was found at the highest concentration of pure toxin, while increasing concentrations of cell extracts caused increasing adverse effects in all the analyzed parameters. Anatoxin-a producing cyanobacteria should be regarded as putative modulators of aquatic ecosystems communities.
2009
Authors
Cordeiro, M; Ribeiro, C;
Publication
2009 10TH INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON IMAGE ANALYSIS FOR MULTIMEDIA INTERACTIVE SERVICES
Abstract
The paper proposes a mixed annotation approach that exploits the advantages of both automatic and manual annotation techniques. Annotated multimedia material is regarded as a source of low- to high-level feature mappings supporting the propagation of annotations to new multimedia material. Video analysis tools do not currently produce effective annotations for retrieval, while manual annotation is expensive. The proposed approach uses low-level feature similarity to guide the retrieval of keyword annotations and aims to preserve the high quality of manual annotations while reducing the time and cost per annotated video unit. The annotation tool assists users, suggesting keywords for an item that come from similar items according to low-level descriptors. The effectiveness of current descriptors has been evaluated in an experimental environment using 5 video collections and a set of MPEG-7 descriptors. The similarity results have been compared to manually evaluated similarity.
2009
Authors
Leitao, P;
Publication
HOLONIC AND MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS FOR MANUFACTURING, PROCEEDINGS
Abstract
Old-fashioned centralized and rigid control structures are becoming inflexible to address the current requirements of reconfigurability, responsiveness and robustness. The Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS) paradigm, which was pointed out to face these requirements, translates the concepts inherited from social organizations and biology to the manufacturing world. It offers an alternative way of designing adaptive systems where the traditional centralized control is replaced by decentralization over distributed entities. In spite of its potential, methods regarding the self-adaptation and self-organization of complex systems are still missing. This paper discusses how the insights from biology in connection with new fields of computer science can be useful to enhance the holonic design aiming to achieve more self-adaptive and evolvable systems.
2009
Authors
Ferreira, PG; Silva, CG; Azevedo, PJ; Brito, RMM;
Publication
COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE METHODS FOR BIOINFORMATICS AND BIOSTATISTICS
Abstract
Molecular dynamics simulations is a valuable tool to study protein unfolding in silico. Analyzing the relative spatial position of the residues during the simulation may indicate which residues are essential in determining the protein structure. We present a method, inspired by a popular data mining technique called Frequent Itemset Mining, that clusters sets of amino acid residues with a synchronized trajectory during the unfolding process. The proposed approach has several advantages over traditional hierarchical clustering. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
2009
Authors
Madureira, A; Lopes, JP; Carrapatoso, A; Silva, N;
Publication
IET Conference Publications
Abstract
This paper presents a novel architecture for electrical distribution networks based on a decentralized control system where a Substation Automation and Control System plays a key role. This new control element brings additional control and management functionalities that are crucial for future distribution networks with high levels of Dispersed Energy Resources in both interconnected and islanded operating modes. Several coordination and control issues are addressed with the aim of optimizing grid operation in interconnected mode and simulation results are shown for voltage and reactive power control.
2009
Authors
Vieira, A; de Oliveira, R; Frazao, O; Baptista, JM; Marques, AT;
Publication
MATERIALS & DESIGN
Abstract
In the present paper, the influence of the fiber Bragg grating (FBG) length and its coating on embedded FBGs in polymers is evaluated. Different FBG lengths and coatings, uncoated and acrylate-recoated, are used. The evolution of their spectra is also followed during laminate curing on a hot-plate press. The Bragg gratings are used as optical fiber sensors, and their sensitivity and reliability are analyzed. The resulting sensor signal characteristics and the strain answers to different loading modes, i.e. tensile, flexural and through-thickness compression, are also studied.
The access to the final selection minute is only available to applicants.
Please check the confirmation e-mail of your application to obtain the access code.