Socially coupled systems are comprised of inter-dependent social, organizational, economic, infrastructure and physical networks. Today's urban regions serve as an excellent example of such systems. People and institutions confront the implications of the increasing scale of information becoming available due to a combination of advances in pervasive computing, data acquisition systems as well as high performance computing. Integrated modeling and decision making environments are necessary to support planning, analysis and counter factual experiments to study these complex systems. Here, we describe SIMFRASTRUCTURE -- a computational infrastructure that supports high performance computing oriented decision and analytics environments to study socially coupled systems. Simfrastructure provides a middleware with multiplexing mechanism by which modeling environments with simple and intuitive user-interfaces can be plugged in as front-end systems, and high-end computing resources -- such as clusters, grids and clouds -- can be plugged in as back-end systems for execution. This makes several key aspects of simulation systems such as the computational complexity, data management and resource management and allocation completely transparent to the users. The decoupling of user interfaces, data repository and computational resources from simulation execution allows users to run simulations and access the results asynchronously and enables them to add new datasets and simulation models dynamically.  Simfrastructure enables implementation of a simple yet powerful modeling environment with built-in analytics-as-aservice platform, which provides seamless access to high end computational resources, through an intuitive interface for studying socially coupled systems. We illustrate the applicability of Simfrastructure in the context of an integrated modeling environment to study public health epidemiology and network science. / Master of Science

In Western Europe the incidence of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) has increased over the last 30 years, coupled with changes in distribution. Modifications in the TBE enzootic cycle, through a combination of changes in temperature, vertebrate abundance and habitat suitability may have increased the risk of TBE in recent years. In Switzerland, analysis using satellite-derived climate data demonstrated that the environment of areas with TBE since the 1980s and areas that recently became endemic for TBE have become more similar between 2001 and 2009. This was coupled with an increase in April, May and June temperature, which could have affected the tick population and/or human exposure to ticks. Deer and boar abundance also changed in some cantons. In Germany, spatio-temporal modelling demonstrated the importance of temperature, vertebrate abundance and unemployment in the incidence and distribution of TBE between 2001 and 2009. Changes in TBE reporting, April, May and June temperature, vertebrate abundance and pesticide use may have contributed to increases in TBE in 1992 and 2001. Human exposure patterns, however, appear to be as important as the enzootic cycle in shaping the incidence of TBE, not only in determining the overall trend but also in interacting with the weekly, seasonal and yearly patterns of tick hazard to give the observed incidence. In Switzerland, in weeks with warm, sunny weather, human exposure to ticks is promoted and short-term increases in tick bites are seen. Human outdoor activity also shifts the seasonal pattern of tick bites, when compared with tick questing. There was no apparent increase in time spent in outdoor activities between the 1990s and 2000s in Italy, Germany and Austria, but survey data demonstrated that walking and hiking were already popular activities across Europe by the 1990s. The popularity of mushroom and berry foraging as a source of income in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, coupled with the expense of vaccination, provide an inverse link between economic wellbeing and TBE risk. Correspondingly, in 2009, the economic recession was associated with an increase with TBE in these three countries.

Submitted by Sandra Pereira (srpereira@ufrrj.br) on 2016-08-09T12:47:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2011 - Arisa Mandarino Pereira.pdf: 1179315 bytes, checksum: ace0cc805baa608ebcae694beffe579a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-09T12:47:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2011 - Arisa Mandarino Pereira.pdf: 1179315 bytes, checksum: ace0cc805baa608ebcae694beffe579a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-25 / The objectives of this study were the prevalence and secular trends of causes of condemnation of carcasses and organs of cattle slaughtered in Maranh?o state and estimate the economic losses associated. Data sources were the five slaughterhouses under Federal Inspection Service in the state. The data were from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2009 and were obtained in the Management Information System Federal Inspection Service in the state. The prevalence of condemnation was calculated per 100,000 cattle inspected. The chi-square for trend and linear regression were used. The chi-square was used to evaluate the significance of association between prevalence of the condemnation causes and establishment and differences between proportions of condemnation forequarters and hindquarters. The main causes of condemnation of carcasses were lesions suggestive of brucellosis and tuberculosis prevalence of 16 and 18/100,000 respectively. The historical trend in prevalence of brucellosis suggestive lesions was slightly up while in tuberculosis suggestive lesion was descending. The linear relationship between prevalence of tuberculosis and years studied was significant (p-value<0.01) but no significant difference for brucellosis (p-value = 0.53). The forequarters are more condemned than the hindquarters (p-value<0.01) and the main cause of condemnation is adenitis/lymphadenitis with prevalence of 09/100,000 and 03/100,000 for forequarters and hindquarters respectively. Traumatic injury was the second major cause of condemnation of forequarters (34x10-2) and third in hindquarters (60x10-2). Among the organs the most condemned is the lung (p=17,508/100,000) followed by kidney (10,800/100,000) while tongue (p=1,021/100,000) is the less condemned. Organs had as major condemnation cause the contamination, except lung and kidneys which had as first cause of condemnation emphysema (p=3,329/100,000) and anemic infarction (p=7,585/100,000) respectively. Historical trends condemnation of tongues, hearts, livers and head for contamination were rising. Lungs and kidneys showed historical trend contamination to condemnation downward. The cattle slaughtered under Federal Inspection Service in Maranh?o State had low prevalence of condemnation for pathological causes. Lesions suggestive of brucellosis and tuberculosis are the most important causes of carcasses condemnation and cause big economic losses. Nevertheless, other causes of condemnation such as adenitis/lymphadenitis traumatic injury and contamination must be considered, mainly because of its relationship with inadequate manage on farm and slaughterhouse by operations insufficiently controlled. Although market price of organs is lower than meat, the economic losses are higher for organs condemnation than carcasses due to the large number of organs condemnation / Os objetivos deste estudo foram conhecer a preval?ncia e a tend?ncia secular das principais causas de condena??o de carca?as e ?rg?os de bovinos abatidos no estado do Maranh?o e estimar as perdas econ?micas associadas. As fontes de dados foram os cincos matadouros frigor?ficos sob Servi?o de Inspe??o Federal do estado. Os dados de abate de bovinos e condena??o s?o referentes ao per?odo de 01 de janeiro de 2002 a 31 de dezembro de 2009 e foram obtidos mediante acesso ao Sistema de Informa??es Gerencias do Servi?o de Inspe??o Federal no estado. As preval?ncias de condena??o foram calculadas por 100.000 bovinos inspecionados. O teste de qui-quadrado para tend?ncia e a regress?o linear simples foram utilizados. O teste do qui-quadrado para independ?ncia foi utilizado para avaliar a signific?ncia da associa??o entre a preval?ncia das causas de condena??o e os estabelecimentos e as diferen?as entre as propor??es de condena??o de quartos traseiros e dianteiros. As preval?ncias de condena??o de carca?as e ?rg?os diferiram significativamente (p-valor<0,01) entre os estabelecimentos. As principais causas de condena??o de carca?as foram les?es sugestivas de brucelose e tuberculose com preval?ncia de 16 e 18/100.000, respectivamente. A tend?ncia hist?rica da preval?ncia de condena??o por les?o sugestiva de brucelose mostrou-se levemente ascendente enquanto que a da tuberculose descendente. A rela??o linear entre a preval?ncia de tuberculose e anos estudados foi significativa (pvalor< 0,01), mas sem diferen?a significativa para brucelose (p-valor=0,53). Os quartos os dianteiros foram mais condenados que os traseiros (p-valor<0,01) e as principais causas de condena??es foram adenite/linfadenite (p=09/100.000) para dianteiros e (p=03/100.000) para traseiros. Les?o traum?tica foi a segunda maior causa de condena??o de quartos dianteiros (p=34x10-2) e a terceira em traseiros (p=60x10-2). Dentre os ?rg?os, o mais condenado foi o pulm?o (p=17.508/100.000) seguido pelos rins (p=10.800/100.000) enquanto que a l?ngua (p=1.021/100.000) foi o menos condenado. A principal causa de condena??o de ?rg?os foi contamina??o, exce??o para os pulm?es e os rins que tiveram como principal causa de condena??o enfisema (p=3.329/100.000) e infarto an?mico (p=7.585/100.000), respectivamente. As tend?ncias de condena??o de l?nguas, cora??es, cabe?a e f?gados para contamina??o foram ascendentes. As principais causas de condena??o de pulm?es e rins foram enfisema (p=3.329/100.000) e infarto an?mico (p=7.585/100.000), respectivamente. Esses dois ?rg?os apresentaram tend?ncia descendente para condena??o por contamina??o. O rebanho bovino abatido sob o Servi?o de Inspe??o Federal do Estado do Maranh?o apresentou baixas preval?ncias de condena??es por causas patol?gicas. Les?es sugestivas de brucelose e tuberculose s?o as causas de condena??o de carca?as que trazem maiores perdas econ?micas. Outras causas de condena??o como adenite/linfadenite les?o traum?tica e contamina??o revelam manejos inadequados na fazenda e opera??es de abate insuficientemente controladas pelos matadourosfrigor?ficos. As altas preval?ncias de condena??o de ?rg?os por contamina??o revelam descuido dos estabelecimentos, no processo de obten??o desses nas linhas de abate indicando necessidade de interven??o nos pontos cr?ticos de contamina??o e melhor treinamento dos funcion?rios dos frigor?ficos. Embora o pre?o de mercado de ?rg?os seja menor que o da carne com osso, as perdas econ?micas estimadas para estes foram duas vezes maior que as resultantes da condena??o carca?as.