Conference: 16th International Conference, CAAD Futures 2015 - "The next city". São Paulo, Brazil, July 8-10, 2015, At São Paulo, Brazil., Volume: Computer-Aided Architectural Design Futures. The Next City - New Technologies and the Future of the Built Environment ( Communications in Computer and Information Science, Volume 527 - 2015) / The present paper is a mapping study of digital fabrication laboratories in Latin America. It presents and discusses results from a survey with 31 universities’ fab labs, studios and independent initiatives in Latin America. The objective of this study is fourfold: firstly, to draw the cultural, social and economic context of implementation of digital fabrication laboratories in the region; secondly, to synthesize relevant data from correlations between organizational structures, facilities and technologies, activities, types of prototypes, uses and areas of application; thirdly, to draw a network of people and institutions, recovering connections and the genealogy of these fab labs; and fourthly, to present some fab labs that are intertwined with local questions. The results obtained indicate a complex “homo faber” network of initiatives that embraces academic investigations, architectural developments, industry applications, artistic propositions and actions in social processes.

Wheat leaf rust, caused by Puccinia triticina Eriks. (= P. recondita Rob. Ex Desmaz. f. sp. tritici), is the most widespread disease of wheat worldwide and causes average annual yield losses of 5 to 25%. The emergence of a new predominant race of leaf rust, TDBG, in the 2004 Canadian virulence survey led to the identification of a second leaf rust resistance gene segregating in the Thatcher-Lr1 near-isogenic differential line, RL6003, which produced an unusual mesothetic infection type. This gene was subsequently isolated in a Thatcher background and temporarily designated as LrCen (Tc-LrCen). A cross was made with a susceptible parent (Tc-LrCen/ Sumai3-lr34) and a doubled haploid (DH) mapping population was generated from the hybrids. Parental lines and 180 double haploid (DH) individuals were phenotyped with race TDBG and a 1:1 ratio was observed in the DH population. Parental lines and 94 DH individuals were genotyped with the Illumina Infinium assay using a custom iSelect 90K wheat SNP array. Two-point linkage between the phenotype and polymorphic SNP markers identified linked markers. A BLAST search of linked SNP sequences was performed against the Wheat Survey Sequence providing a putative chromosomal location of 7AL. Subsequent mapping with microsatellite markers confirmed LrCen was located on the long arm of chromosome 7A flanked by gwm344 (9.5 cM) and cfa2240 (0.6 cM) as well as a group of co-segregating SNPs also at a genetic distance of 0.6 cM. When the SNP sequences were converted to the kompetitive allele specific PCR (KASP) markers they were found to be dominant, making them less useful for marker assisted selection in populations with heterozygotes. LrCen mapped distal to Lr20; the only other Lr gene previously identified on chromosome 7AL. / October 2016

In diagramming the recent, global proliferation in quotidian cartographic technologies and practices, this thesis is concerned with the re-imagining of durable geographic motifs and refrains; those of maps and mappings. Conceptually, the thesis works to explore and interrogate the underplayed non-representational registers of cartography. Specifically, this entails unsettling the assumed ontological security of maps as representational artefacts, at the same time accentuating their affective and virtual vectors through an attentiveness to their spatial emergence and performance. In doing so, maps are rendered here not as mimetic, static grids of existence, but as intensive performances, productive of an unqualified geographic and political potential; that is to say, spaces of the virtual. Empirically, these conceptual concerns are worked through a series of fieldwork traces that animate and narrate a number of quite distinct yet resonant cartographic performances; namely geographic encounters with a counter-cartography group in North Carolina; a digital, open-source mapping organisation in both the UK and Peru and finally with two examples of an institutional cartography: Google and Ordnance Survey. Through these mappings, these fieldwork traces, what the thesis works towards is a micropolitical diagramming of contemporary cartographic practices, a diagramming that complicates deliberately the representational certitude of maps, but moreover, one that affirms the (im)material, anticipatory and minor geopolitics of mapping; a mapping of and for the everyday; a mapping of and for the vernacular.

Automation in warehouses has been improved in a very certain manner, combining sensors for perception of the environment and mapping of the warehouse. The most common characteristic, which makes the products and the pallet rack cells discriminative, are the barcodes placed on them. This means that the warehouse management system should successfully perceive all the necessary information of the detected barcodes, which also includes their position in the warehouse and build a barcode map of the environment. For this process a barcode reader is needed, with extended capabilities such as estimation of the 3-dimensional coordinates of the barcodes. The main idea of this research was the development of a system to be used in future work, placed on the roof of a forklift, which will be able to detect the barcodes and localize itself using an existing map of the warehouse and update new information in this map. However, the purpose of this project was the investigation of a suitable system for barcode mapping. The main challenge of this project was the development of a barcode reader, which fulfills all the referred capabilities and the comparison with a commercial reader in order to evaluate the performance of the system. In this project a barcode reader was developed using software libraries and a camera for industrial use. The performance of the system was compared with a commercial barcode reader. Moreover, an algorithm was implemented, for estimation of the position of each detected barcode, with reference to the position of the camera's lens.  According to the results of all the investigations the performance of the developed system was quiet satisfying and promising. The comparison of the two systems proved that the commercial barcode reader had a better performance than the implemented system. However, it lacked the ability to provide the required information for mapping also the flexibility for integration with other systems. Overall, the developed system proved to be suitable for integration with a warehouse management system for barcode mapping of the environment.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia encountered in clinical practice, occurring in 1% of the adult population of North America. Although AF does not typically lead to risk of immediate mortality, it is a potent risk factor for ischemic stroke. When left untreated AF reduces quality of life, functional status, cardiac performance and is associated with higher medical costs and an increased risk of death. Catheter ablation is a commonly used treatment method for those who suffer from drugrefractory AF. Prior to ablation, intra-cardiac mapping can be used to determine the activation sequence of cardiac tissue, which may be useful in deciding where to place ablation lesions. However, the electrical potential that is recorded during mapping is not a direct reflection of the current density across the tissue because the potential recorded at each point above the heart tissue is influenced by every cell in the tissue. This causes the recorded potential to be a blurred version of the true tissue current density. The potential that is observed can be described as the convolution of the true current density with a point spread function. Accordingly, deconvolution can, in principle, be used in order to improve the resolution of potential maps. However, because the number of electrodes which can be deployed transvenously is limited by practical restrictions, the recorded potential field is a sparsely sampled version of the actual potential field. Further, an electrode array cannot sample over the entire atrial surface, so the potential map that is observed is a truncated version of the global electrical activity. Here, we investigate the effects of electrode sampling density and edge extension on the ability of deconvolution to improve the resolution of measured electrical potentials within the atria of the heart. In particular, we identify the density of sensing electrodes that are required to allow deconvolution to provide improved estimation of the true current density when compared to the observed potential field.

Information from soil geochemical mapping programmes is useful within a number of different fields including for example mineral exploration and environmental research. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between soil metal concentrations and geological factors such as bedrock lithology, structural geology, mineralizations etc. The study used data acquired in association with a nationwide soil geochemical mapping programme conducted by the Geological Survey of Sweden, SGU. These data contained both total element concentrations measured via X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and acid leached concentrations measured with plasma technique. Basic statistical compilations were made, including classification of element concentrations into percentiles according to SGU standards, calculation of leachability and correlation analyses. Spatial analyses were also done, using GIS-software. The results showed that all investigated elements except zinc had elevated median values for total concentrations in the project area compared to the natural median values. The strongest correlation for total element concentrations was that between iron and cobalt with Spearman ρ=0.88. Furthermore, the results of this study indicated that sampling sites superimposing volcanic rocks contained the highest total concentrations of manganese. The results also suggested that manganese content increased with increasing age of the underlying bedrock. The highest median concentration of 0.80 g/kg was found in Archean rocks. Known mineralizations were often reflected in the form of positive element anomalies in the till geochemistry. The obtained results were also consistent with the average composition of the bedrock. No clear connections with any of the other investigated geological factors could be made.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Violence occurs in different environments, however, it is often found in the family with family members being the perpetrators. Family violence, as an integrative concept, is defined by few researchers or theorists, let alone conceptualised as a theoretical grounding for family-centred interventions aimed at violence in the home. However, family members are all affected in the act of any violence in the family, thus any intervention should include the whole family. A family-centred approach focuses on all family members to be included in the intervention and is acknowledged as the best method when trying to create an intervention for family violence. Thus, the aim of this study was to design an intervention programme for families experiencing family violence in order to reduce violence in the family. To create such a programme, intervention mapping was the chosen design for this study. Intervention mapping has five steps, 1.) Specify the programme’s goals into proximal programme objectives. In this stage, needs are identified; 2.) Selection of theoretical and practical strategies; 3.) Design the programme, 4.) Implementation of the programme, and 5.) Focus on anticipating process and effect evaluation. However, this study only focused on the first 3 steps of intervention development, namely, Phase I, a family violence needs assessment done to identify the problem, Phase II entailed a review done to determine appropriate theoretical and practical approaches for the intervention regarding family violence, and lastly, Phase III had been a Delphi study which aided in the design and development of the intervention. This study showed promising results with proven long-term positive effects in implementing a family-centred approach, and when coupled with a collaborative network of support services, political will, and community support, and has the ability to ensure continuity of care and improved functioning for families experiencing violence in the home.

The neurophysiological signals that are recorded in EEG (electroencephalography) and MEG (magnetoencephalography) originate from current flow perpendicular to the cortical surface due to the columnar organization of pyramidal cells in the cortical gray matter. These locations and directions have been used as anatomical constraints for dipolar sources in estimations of neural activity from MEG recordings. Here we extend anatomically constrained beamforming to EEG, which requires a more sophisticated forward model than MEG due to the blurring of the electric potential at tissue boundaries, but in contrast to MEG, EEG can account for both tangential and radial sources. Using computed tomography (CT) scans we create a realistic three-layer head model consisting of tessellated surfaces representing the tissue boundaries cerebrospinal fluid-skull, skull-scalp and scalp-air. The cortical gray matter surface, the anatomical constraint for the source dipoles, is extracted from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. EEG beamforming is implemented in a set of simulated data and compared for three different head models: single sphere, multi-shell sphere and realistic geometry multi-shell model that employs a boundary element method. Beamformer performance is also analyzed and evaluated for multiple dipoles and extended sources (patches). We show that using anatomical constraints with the beamforming algorithm greatly reduces computation time while increasing the spatial accuracy of the reconstructed sources of neural activity. Using the spatial Laplacian instead of the electric potential in combination with beamforming further improves the spatial resolution and allows for the detection of highly correlated sources. / by Vyacheslav Murzin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

A área de estudo da presente pesquisa compreende a bacia hidrográfica do rio dos Sinos localizada entre as coordenadas de 50º 10 e 51º 20 de longitude oeste e entre 29º 15 e 30º 00 de latitude sul, atingindo municípios da Região Metropolitana de Porto Alegre - RMPA e da chamada Serra Gaúcha. O objetivo do trabalho foi o de estudar as terras inundáveis da área especificada a partir de parâmetros geomorfológicos contextualizando-as dentro de uma concepção sistêmica da paisagem, adotando como recorte espacial a bacia hidrográfica. Buscou-se contribuir nas questões relativas às variadas nomenclaturas, definições e no método de estudo dessas áreas. Na escala da bacia analisaram-se a litologia e a pedologia a partir de mapas já presentes na literatura. Elaborou-se mapeamento geomorfológico na escala 1:100000, perfis transversais e longitudinais e análise de dados pluviométricos que serviram como base para a definição das imagens mais apropriadas para a delimitação do limite superior aproximado das terras inundáveis. Em escala de detalhe, 1: 10000 mapearam-se os lagos naturais, bem como aqueles com origem antropogênica, foi também possível refinar o limite das terras inundáveis estudadas. Por meio da elaboração dos mapas de uso nos limites e entorno das terras inundáveis foi possível uma visão do estado atual de conservação destas áreas. A metodologia operacional compreendeu o uso de técnicas do Sistema de Informações Geográficas e do Sensoriamento Remoto. A metodologia teórica metodológica foi embasada em Ab Saber (1969) que propôs três níveis básicos de pesquisa em geomorfologia, Ross (1992) com a proposta de taxonomia do relevo e Bertalanffy (1975) a partir da Teoria Geral dos Sistemas - TGS. No que se referem aos resultados na escala da bacia temos como principais formações litológicas: derrames basálticos e depósitos sedimentares, ambos pertencentes à Morfoestrutura da Bacia Sedimentar do Paraná e depósitos cenozóicos do Terciário e do Quaternário. As morfoesculturas resultantes compreendem áreas de planaltos, planícies e depressões relativas. Os basaltos de formação mais ácida formaram planaltos tabulares, os basaltos de constituição intermediária e básica formaram morros que variam entre 150 e 750 metros de altitude aproximadamente. Nos depósitos da formação Botucatu e Rosário do Sul predominam as colinas e morros de baixa altitude. As planícies flúvio - coluvionares e fluviais estão restritas aos depósitos do Quaternário e do Terciário respectivamente. Os solos localizados nas terras inundáveis foram o chernossolo háplico órtico no trecho médio e superior da bacia e o planossolo háplico eutrófico no trecho inferior. A partir da análise dos dados pluviométricos, que compreendeu o intervalo entre 1999 e 2008, constatou-se que as imagens mais apropriadas para a delimitação do limite superior aproximado das terras inundáveis seria a de outubro de 2005, porém utilizou-se a imagem de setembro de 2005, pelo fato desta, e não da outra, estar disponível. O mês de setembro foi antecedido pelo segundo mês com maior índice pluviométrico para 2005, assim, não houve grande prejuízo na utilização desta imagem. Dos seis mapas elaborados referentes ao aspecto natural das terras inundáveis constatou-se a incidência de lagos em todas as áreas, excluindo apenas o caso do mapa do trecho um jusante onde não há sinal de divagação de canal e alta taxa de alteração dos aspectos naturais. A maioria dos lagos se formaram naturalmente a partir do estrangulamento e abandono de meandro, há também lagos de origem antropogênica. A existência ou não de lagos definiu nomenclatura mais específica das terras inundáveis como fluvias ou flúviolacustres. A partir dos mapas das principais alterações antrópicas contatou-se que no trecho médio e de montante predomina a utilização agrícola. Nas áreas do trecho dois e três de jusante há maior incidência de vegetação natural, porém, de forma insuficiente, a ocupação urbana neste trecho se apresenta na maioria das vezes de forma concentrada. Constatou-se que nas áreas mais a jusante as terras inundáveis são maiores do que nas áreas mais a montante, o que pode ser explicado, entre outros fatores, pela influência do relevo na configuração espacial destas áreas. Acredita-se que a partir dos esforços aqui realizados que tiveram por base pressupostos conceituais e aplicados da Geomorfologia, foi possível melhor compreender as terras inundáveis, para a área de estudo e de forma geral independentemente de fatores de localização ou espaciais. / The study area of this research comprises the Bells river basin located between the coordinates 50 º 10 \'and 50 º 20\' west longitude and between 29 º 15 \'and 30 º 00\' south latitude, reaching municipalities in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre - RMPA and in the area of the called Serra Gaúcha. The aim of this work was to study the floodable lands in the specified area through geomorphological parameters, contextualizing these areas in a systemic approach of the landscape - the river basin. The methodology comprised, in a basin scale, geological and pedological analysis based on existing maps in the literature, 1:100000 scale geomorphological mapping, analysis of rainfall data that was the basis for defining the most appropriate images for the delineation of the approximate superior boundary of floodable lands. Scale of detail 1: 10000, water bodies placed in the defined areas, as well as major changes from land use, were mapped. High-resolution images were used in order to refine the floodable land boundaries, and these images served as well for paleochannels, land use and anthropogenic lakes mapping. The operational methodology included the use of techniques of Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing. The theoretical methodology was based on Ab\'Saber (1969) who proposed three basic levels of research in geomorphology, Ross (1992) with the proposed taxonomy of relief and Bertalanffy (1975) from the General Systems Theory - TGS. With regard to the results on the basin scale, we have as main lithological formations: basalt flows and sedimentary deposits, both belonging to morphostructural of Paraná Sedimentary Basin, and Tertiary and Quaternary Cenozoic deposits. The forms of relief are related to these structures, the more acidic basalts form tabular plateaus, the basalts of intermediate and basic constitution formed hills ranging between 150 and 750 altitude meters approximately, in the Botucatu and Rosário do Sul deposits predominate the hills and low altitude mountains, the fluvial-colluvial and fluvial plains are restricted to Quaternary and Tertiary deposits respectively. The soils from floodable lands form Mollisol in the middle and superior section of the basin and Haplic Eutrophic Planosol in the lower part. The driest months are January, February and March, and the wettest are October, May and June in the period between 1999 and 2008. We can find, from the six generated maps, that the incidence of lakes is higher in the lower section in the cases that have not lost their natural characteristics due to human action. Most of the lakes are formed naturally from the meander stranglehold, and there are lakes of anthropogenic origin. Differences in relation to water bodies have defined more specific classification of land as fluvial or fluvial-lacustrial. We can find, from the six generated maps concerning the natural aspects of wetlands, that there is incidence of lakes in all areas, excluding only the case of the section 1 downstream, where there isnt any case of meandering and theres high rate of anthropogenic action. Most of the lakes are formed naturally from the meander stranglehold, and there are lakes of anthropogenic origin. Differences in relation to water bodies have defined more specific classification of land as fluvial or fluvial-lacustrial. From the maps of the major anthropogenic changes it was found that in the middle and higher river sections the land is used for agriculture predominantly. In the areas corresponding to sections two and three, downstream, there is a higher incidence of natural vegetation, however its still insufficiently. The urban settlement is most often concentrated. It was found that in further downstream areas the wetlands are bigger than in the upstream areas: this phenomenom can be explained by the shape of relief in the adjacent areas and even by the study of areas beyond the boundary of floodable land. Finally, we conclude that a kind of approach, as addopted in this research (which was based on geomorphological analysis), opens up possibilities for classification and better understanding of floodable lands the phenomenon studied.

Um dos principais desafios no estudo da biodiversidade é o mapeamento de grupos faunísticos megadiversos. O mapeamento da biodiversidade auxilia na avaliação dos padrões de distribuição e riqueza de espécies e de suas comunidades, na compreensão de características ambientais e, consequentemente, dos fatores ecológicos por trás da especialização das espécies ao meio. Nesse trabalho foi avaliada a diversidade de aranhas (Araneae) coletadas em cavernas do Brasil, com o objetivo de determinar e classificar a araneofauna de cavernas. Um banco de dados composto por 29261 aranhas adultas oriundos de 3455 cavernas do Brasil foi elaborado. Foram determinadas 179 espécies nomeadas e 428 morfoespécies, totalizando 607 espécies, distribuídas em 59 famílias. Apresentamos os dados históricos dos estudos bioespeleológicos no Brasil com ênfase em aranhas entre 1972-2015, uma nova listagem das espécies nominadas e o mapeamento da distribuição dessas espécies, sendo este disponível para consulta em uma ferramenta virtual, o AppBio. Foi avaliada a diversidade funcional das espécies determinadas com base nos comportamentos de forrageamento conhecidos para as aranhas. Uma análise de guildas foi elaborada e as espécies foram classificadas ecológico-evolutiva em grupos funcionais, determinados pelo grau de relação das populações-fonte com o ambiente cavernícola (acidental, trogloxeno, troglófilo e troglóbio), categorias clássicas propostas por Schiner-Racovitza para as espécies subterrâneas. Características morfológicas que indicam preferência pelo ambiente hipógeo (ex. anoftalmia e despigmentação corporal) e especialização à vida no ambiente subterrâneo também foram avaliadas. Os padrões de riqueza tanto dos grupos funcionais como macroecológicos (ex. latitude e altitude) foram avaliados e discutidos de forma sucinta. A riqueza regional também foi avaliada sendo agrupada pela ocorrência das espécies em cavernas de diferentes Biomas brasileiros. Uma boa base de dados e um modelo de mapeamento e disponibilização desses dados de forma virtual foram elaborados para auxiliar nos estudos da fauna de aranhas cavernícolas e para definir propostas para preservação da fauna e conservação dos ambientes subterrâneos / One of the main challenges in the study of biodiversity is the mapping of megadiverse faunal groups. Biodiversity mapping assists in assessing patterns of distribution and species richness and their communities, understanding environmental characteristics and, consequently, ecological factors behind the species\' specialization to the environment. This work evaluated the diversity of spiders (Araneae) collected in caves in Brazil, with the objective of determining and classifying the araneofauna of caves. A database consisting of 29261 adult spiders from 3455 caves in Brazil was prepared. There were 179 named species and 428 morphospecies, totaling 607 species, distributed in 59 families. We present the historical data of the biospeleological studies in Brazil with a spider focus between 1972-2015, a new listing of the nominated species and the mapping of the species distribution, being available for consultation in a virtual tool, AppBio. It was evaluated the functional diversity of the determined species based on the known foraging behaviors for the spiders. An analysis of guilds was elaborated and the species were classified ecologically-evolutionary in functional groups, determined by the degrees of relation of the source populations with the cave environment (accidental, trogloxene, troglophile and troglobite), classical categories proposed by Schiner-Racovitza for subterranean species. Morphological characteristics indicating preference for the hypogeum environment (eg. anophthalmia and body depigmentation) and specialization in life in the underground environment were also evaluated. The richness patterns of both the functional and macroecological groups (eg. latitude and altitude) were evaluated and discussed succinctly. The regional richness was also evaluated by separating by the occurrence of the species in caves of different Brazilian Biomes. A good database and a model for mapping and making this data available in a virtual way were developed to assist in the study of cave spider fauna and to define proposals for preserving fauna and conserving underground environments