Universidade de Pernambuco

About: Universidade de Pernambuco is a education organization based out in Recife, Brazil. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Medicine. The organization has 6147 authors who have published 6948 publications receiving 73648 citations.

Neural-Based Ensembles for Particulate Matter Forecasting

Abstract: The air pollution caused by particulate matter (PM) has become a public health issue due to the risks to human life and the environment. The PM concentration in the air causes haze and affects the lungs and the heart, leading to reduced visibility, allergic reactions, pneumonia, asthma, cardiopulmonary diseases, lung cancer, and even death. In this context, the development of systems for monitoring, forecasting, and controlling emissions plays an important role. The literature about forecasting systems based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) ensembles has been highlighted regarding statistical accuracy and efficiency. In this article, trainable and non-trainable combination methods are used for PM10 and PM2.5 (particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 and 2.5 micrometers, respectively) time series forecasting for eight different locations, in Finland and Brazil, for different periods. Trainable ensembles based on ANNs, linear regression, and Copulas are compared with non-trainable combinations (mean and median), single ANNs, and linear statistical approaches. Different models are considered so far, including Autoregressive model (AR), Autoregressive and Moving Average Model (ARMA), Infinite Impulse Response Filters (IIR), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Radial Basis Function Networks (RBF), Extreme Learning Machines (ELM), Echo State Networks (ESN), and Adaptive Network Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The use of ANNs ensembles, mainly combined with MLP, leads to a better one step ahead forecasting performance. The use of robust air pollution forecasting tools is prime to assist governments in managing air pollution issues like hospital collapse during adverse air quality situations. In this sense, our study is indirectly related to the following United Nations sustainable development goals: SDG 3 - good health and well-being and SDG 11 - sustainable cities and communities.

Cardiovascular responses to walking in patients with peripheral artery disease.

Abstract: Purposes To assess the cardiovascular responses during constant load walking and to identify predictors of this response in peripheral artery disease (PAD) patients.

Anestesia e paralisia cerebral

Abstract: JUSTIFICATIVA E OBJETIVOS: A paralisia cerebral (PC) e uma doenca nao progressiva decorrente de lesao no sistema nervoso central, levando a um comprometimento motor do paciente. O portador de PC frequentemente e submetido a procedimentos cirurgicos devido a doencas usuais e situacoes particulares decorrentes da paralisia cerebral. Foi objetivo deste artigo revisar aspectos da paralisia cerebral de interesse para o anestesiologista, permitindo um adequado manuseio pre, intra e pos-operatorio neste tipo de paciente. CONTEUDO: O artigo aborda aspectos da paralisia cerebral como etiologia, classificacao, fatores de risco, fisiopatologia, quadro clinico, diagnostico, terapeuticas utilizadas bem como avaliacao pre-operatoria, medicacao pre-anestesica, manuseio intra e pos-operatorio, analgesia pos-operatoria e dor cronica. CONCLUSOES: O anestesiologista desempenha um papel importante na diminuicao da morbidade e mortalidade anestesico-cirurgica em pacientes portadores de paralisia cerebral. O conhecimento da fisiopatologia dos diferentes tipos de paralisia cerebral bem como das doencas associadas e suas terapeuticas e imprescindivel, pois permite ao anestesiologista antecipar e prevenir complicacoes intra e pos-operatorias neste tipo de paciente.

Large Enhancement of Critical Current in Superconducting Devices by Gate Voltage

Abstract: Significant control over the properties of a high-carrier density superconductor via an applied electric field has been considered infeasible due to screening of the field over atomic length scales. Here, we demonstrate an enhancement of up to 30% in critical current in a back-gate tunable NbN micro- and nano superconducting bridges. Our suggested plausible mechanism of this enhancement in critical current based on surface nucleation and pinning of Abrikosov vortices is consistent with expectations and observations for type-II superconductor films with thicknesses comparable to their coherence length. Furthermore, we demonstrate an applied electric field-dependent infinite electroresistance and hysteretic resistance. Our work presents an electric field driven enhancement in the superconducting property in type-II superconductors which is a crucial step toward the understanding of field-effects on the fundamental properties of a superconductor and its exploitation for logic and memory applications in a superconductor-based low-dissipation digital computing paradigm.

A partial reconfigurable architecture for controllers based on Petri nets

Abstract: The digital control systems in industry has been used in most of the applications based on expensive programmable logical controllers (PLC). These systems are, in general, highly complex and slow, with an operation cycle around 10 ms. In this work, a reconfigurable logic controller (RLC) approach is presented, based on a small and low cost Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA architecture, operating as a virtual hardware machine. In this context, the main process is specified in a formal language, based on Petri nets or SFC (sequential function chart). For applications that demand more hardware than that available in the FPGA, a partial reconfiguration mechanism takes place. From the Petri net specification, the main process is split into multiple contexts, which are sequentially executed within the same FPGA, without violating the operation cycle of application.