2023
Authors
Pereira, MG; Vilaça, M; Braga, D; Madureira, A; Da Silva, J; Santos, D; Carvalho, E;
Publication
WOUND REPAIR AND REGENERATION
Abstract
Diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) are one of the most frequent and debilitating complications of diabetes. DFU wound healing is a highly complex process, resulting in significant medical, economic and social challenges. Therefore, early identification of patients with a high-risk profile would be important to adequate treatment and more successful health outcomes. This study explores risk assessment profiles for DFU healing and healing prognosis, using machine learning predictive approaches and decision tree algorithms. Patients were evaluated at baseline (T0; N = 158) and 2 months later (T1; N = 108) on sociodemographic, clinical, biochemical and psychological variables. The performance evaluation of the models comprised F1-score, accuracy, precision and recall. Only profiles with F1-score >0.7 were selected for analysis. According to the two profiles generated for DFU healing, the most important predictive factors were illness representations on T1 IPQ-B (IPQ-B <= 9.5 and < 10.5) and the DFU duration (<= 13 weeks). The two predictive models for DFU healing prognosis suggest that biochemical factors are the best predictors of a favorable healing prognosis, namely IL-6, microRNA-146a-5p and PECAM-1 at T0 and angiopoietin-2 at T1. Illness perception at T0 (IPQ-B <= 39.5) also emerged as a relevant predictor for healing prognosis. The results emphasize the importance of DFU duration, illness perception and biochemical markers as predictors of healing in chronic DFUs. Future research is needed to confirm and test the obtained predictive models.
2023
Authors
Miranda, M;
Publication
2023 IEEE/ACM 23RD INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON CLUSTER, CLOUD AND INTERNET COMPUTING WORKSHOPS, CCGRIDW
Abstract
The Software-Defined Storage (SDS) paradigm has emerged as a way to ease the orchestration and management complexities of storage systems. This work aims to mitigate the storage performance issues that large-scale HPC infrastructures are currently facing by developing a scalable and dependable control plane that can be integrated into an SDS design to take full advantage of the tools this paradigm offers. The proposed solution will enable system administrators to define storage policies (e.g., I/O prioritization, rate limiting) and, based on them, the control plane will orchestrate the storage system to provide better QoS for data-centric applications.
2023
Authors
Iria, J; Soares, F;
Publication
APPLIED ENERGY
Abstract
Traditional retail business models price electricity using volumetric tariffs, which charge customers for the unit of energy consumed. These tariffs were designed for passive consumers with low flexibility. In this paper, we argue that these volumetric tariffs are unsuitable for prosumers with high flexibility since they are unable to adequately value the flexibility of their distributed energy resources in multiple electricity markets. This reduces the interest of prosumers participating in aggregators' business models. To address this issue, we propose a new business model for aggregators of prosumers, based on the concept of energy-as-a-service. In this business model, prosumers pay a monthly fee for aggregators to represent and optimize them in multiple wholesale electricity markets, including in energy and ancillary service markets. The monthly fee is computed by a new technoeconomic simulation framework proposed in this paper, which can also be used to estimate the profitability of the new business model from the perspectives of both the aggregator and prosumers. Our experiments on a portfolio of real prosumers from Australia show that the new business model maximizes the economic benefits of both the aggregator and prosumers by increasing the average profit of the aggregator by 438% and reducing the average electricity cost of prosumers from $583/year to $0 when compared to two of the most common retail business models available in the Australian market. In other words, the economic benefit for prosumers is free electricity. In addition to this benefit, the new business model also provides simplicity and predictability to prosumers, as they are offered a guaranteed outcome before providing the services.
2023
Authors
Oliveira, B; Lopes, CT;
Publication
Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, CHIIR 2023, Austin, TX, USA, March 19-23, 2023
Abstract
Web Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are one of the most well-known and used web pages. These pages have started as simple "10 blue links"pages, but the information in SERP currently goes way beyond these links. Several features have been included in these pages to complement organic and sponsored results and attempt to provide answers to the query instead of just pointing to websites that might deliver that information. In this work, we analyze the appearance and evolution of SERP features in the two leading web search engines, Google Search and Microsoft Bing. Using a sample of SERP from the Internet Archive, we analyzed the appearance and evolution of these features. We found that SERP are becoming more diverse in terms of elements, aggregating content from different verticals and including more features that provide direct answers.
2023
Authors
Fontes, DBMM; Homayouni, SM;
Publication
FLEXIBLE SERVICES AND MANUFACTURING JOURNAL
Abstract
This work formulates a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model and proposes a bi-objective multi-population biased random key genetic algorithm (mp-BRKGA) for the joint scheduling of quay cranes and speed adjustable vehicles in container terminals considering the dual-cycling strategy. Under such a strategy, a combination of loading and unloading containers are handled by a set of cranes (moved between ships and vehicles) and transported by a set of vehicles (transported between the quayside and the storage area). The problem consists of four components: crane scheduling, vehicle assignment, vehicle scheduling, and speed assignment both for empty and loaded journey legs. The results show that an approximated true Pareto front can be found by solving the proposed MILP model and that the mp-BRKGA finds uniformly distributed Pareto fronts, close to the true ones. Additionally, the results clearly demonstrate the advantages of considering speed adjustable vehicles since both the makespan and the energy consumption can be considerably reduced.
2023
Authors
Stolarski, O; Lourenço, JM; Peres, E; Morais, R; Sousa, JJ; Pádua, L;
Publication
CENTERIS 2023 - International Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems / ProjMAN - International Conference on Project MANagement / HCist - International Conference on Health and Social Care Information Systems and Technologies 2023, Porto, Portugal, November 8-10, 2023.
Abstract
Data acquisition through unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has become integral to the study of agricultural crops, especially for multitemporal analyses spanning the entire growing season. Ensuring accurate data alignment is essential not only to maintain data quality but also to leverage the continuous monitoring of the same area over time. Ground control points (GCPs) play a critical role in geolocating UAV data. Their absence can lead to planimetric and altimetric discrepancies, which are particularly impactful in 3D plant-level studies. This study is centered on the examination of misalignment effects in a challenging steep slope vineyard environment and their impacts on 3D alignment accuracy. For this purpose, a UAV equipped with an RGB camera to capture imagery at two distinct flight heights. Various scenarios, each involving a different number of GCPs, were assessed to evaluate their impact on alignment precision. The methodology employed holds potential for assessing geolocation accuracy in complex 3D environments, providing value insights for vineyard monitoring. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.
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.