André Peres

Helminths from an Introduced Species (Tupinambis merianae), and Two Endemic Species (Trachylepis atlantica and Amphisbaena ridleyi) from Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, Brazil

Abstract The present study reports the occurrence of helminths in the introduced species Tupinambis merianae (tegu lizard), and in two endemic species Trachylepis atlantica (small lizard) and Amphisbaena ridleyi (two-head-snake lizard ), from Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, State of Pernambuco, Brazil. Nine species of helminths were found, mainly in the digestive tract and accessory organs, with the following prevalence (P) and mean infection intensity (MII). Tupinambis merianae: Diaphanocephalus galeatus (P  =  96%, MII  =  20.5), Spinicauda spinicauda (P  =  100%, MII  =  197.8), and Oochoristica sp.1 (P  =  20%, MII  =  4.4). Trachylepis atlantica: Moaciria alvarengai (P  =  20%, MII  =  1.4), S. spinicauda (P  =  92%, MII  =  22.1), Mesocoelium monas (P  =  4%, MII  =  3.0), Platynosomum sp. (P  =  8%, MII  =  7.0), and Oochoristica sp.2 (P  =  16%, MII  =  1.25). Amphisbaena ridleyi: Aplectana albae (P  =  96%, MII  =  143.4), Thelandros alvarengai (P  =  4%, MII  =  1.0), Me. monas (P  =  44%, MII  =  2.8), Platynosomum sp. (P  =  36%; MII  =  13.8), and Oochoristica sp.2 (P  =  48%; MII  =  2.17). More than 80% of T. merianae were infected with 2, or more, helminth species. In Tr. atlantica, single-species infections were present in 50% of the specimens, but co-occurrence of 2 parasites was also high (41.7%). In A. ridleyi, multiple infections were more common, with up to 5 parasite species present. The helminth fauna observed allowed us to conclude that helminths can be carried together with their host when they colonize new geographic localities and that these introduced helminths can, in turn, colonize endemic, or native, hosts.

Enhancing the Quality of Recommendations through Expert and Trusted Agents

In multi-agent recommender systems, agents are able to generate recommendations according to the preferences of the customer. However, in some domains, specific knowledge is required in order to compose a recommendation and this knowledge may be not available for the agent. In these cases, agents need to communicate with other agents in the community searching for the specific information to complete the recommendation. This paper presents a multi-agent recommender system based on trust and expert agents. It aims at improving the quality of the information exchanged among agents because communication will occur primarily with trusted sources in the hope to decrease the communication load. Also, agents become experts in specific types of recommendation. The approach was validate in the tourism domain by means of recommendations of travel packages and experiments were performed to illustrate the impact of using trust assignment in the quality of the recommendations generated by expert agents. Results corroborate the intuition that expert agents that use a trust mechanism are able to increase the quality of recommendation provided.

Case Law Analysis with Machine Learning in Brazilian Court

This paper aims the application of the knowledge discovering process in a judicial decisions database with the goal of unveiling the tendency of opinion Brazilian courts have, in relation to the favored party, employee or employer. Supervised machine learning techniques were used to classify documents. Such predictive model reached scores of more than 90% of ranking decision accuracy resulting in solid information about the tendency of each judge. Thus, this project contributes with a software that allows law firms to obtain information in a fast visual and exploratory way enabling them to focus and make more efforts in finding more effective legal strategies, than in jurisprudential research.

Tailoring Training for Obese Individuals with Case-Based Reasoning

Obesity is a complex disease that involves genetic factors, inflammatory patterns, resilience and psycho-social factors. An effective system which is able to recommend adequate training for obese subjects that starts a new protocol would enhance the quality and success of the rehabilitation of these subjects. This paper presents a case-based reasoning system that suggests the most effective type of physical training exercise for obese individuals. The presented system was validated by domain experts and the results of this analysis show that case-based reasoning is a viable approach that can help to improve life of obese people.

Using Web Collaboration to Create New Physical Learning Objects

This paper describes the construction of a technological and collaborative infrastructure for the creation of physical learning objects. The solution uses a social network, digital fabrication lab and wiki page as an way to propose, build and publish educational objects. The idea is to create an innovative solution to get together a multidisciplinary team of students, teachers, professors and researchers that can propose, define, coordinate, build and publish these objects. The structure is presented and also the first objects and results.

Monitoramento da qualidade da água, redes sociais das coisas e a educação ambiental

Este trabalho apresenta uma estrutura tecnoloogica com o objetivo de automaticamente coletar, processar e apresentar informacoes ambientais online sobre a qualidade da agua para diferentes perfis de usuario. A disponibilidade de informacoes usando a publicacao de dados brutos e os principios da Redes Sociais das Coisas permite que essa estrutura seja utilizada em consultas remotas para o ensino, pesquisa e difusao de informacao socialmente valiosas. As caracteristicas desta estrutura sao apresentadas, os resultados de experiencias em laboratorio e no ambiente real, bem como as consideracoes sobre o uso deste tipo de sistema em atividades de ensino.