Free Access Databases Research Articles

Abbattimento del particolato aerodisperso (PM10 e PM2.5) in tre aree protette e due ville storiche della città di Roma nei mesi di lockdown (marzo-aprile 2020)

Abstract: Airborne particulate matter (PM) has been widely demonstrated to play a role in the increase in mortality linked to cardio-respiratory diseases, in the reduction of immune system defense mechanisms, and in the transmission of pathogens. Equally accepted is the role that trees play in fine particulate matter absorption in urban areas. This study examined the capacity of particulate reduction in three protected areas in Rome within the park and nature reserve system managed by the regional organization “RomaNatura” (Riserva Naturale della Marcigliana, Riserva Naturale della Valle dell’Aniene and Parco Regionale Urbano di Aguzzano) and two historic Roman parks (Villa Ada and Villa Borghese). The study was held in March and April 2020 during the COVID 19 lockdown period. Due to the impossibility of physically gathering data and recording measurements in the field in order to define the biophysical characteristics of the areas under study, remote sensing techniques were utilized. Although such techniques may be influenced by a degree of uncertainty in the absence of calibration procedures based on in-field inspection and verification, they still constitute a preliminary phase for further investigation, especially for studying difficult-to-access areas or for project research with limited resources. The average quantities of fine and ultrafine particulate matter captured during the two-month period were 4.330.22 ± 1.429.54 Kg di PM10 and 373.33 ± 124.01 Kg di PM2.5. This data is not directly comparable to the results of similar studies conducted in much larger areas over longer periods of time. It nevertheless shows that remote sensing techniques based on free access databases and open source software can be employed by a community of motivated citizens with basic technical and scientific knowledge; it can also be a powerful means of awareness-building and involvement in the conservation of urban forests.

Universities for Seniority: A New Perspective of Aging

Universities for the elderly are places focused on learning, well-being, and quality of life of the elderly which ensures healthier aging. Objective: To describe the contributions of universities of the elderly to the healthy aging of their participants. Methodology: The work is characterized as bibliographic research. Regarding inclusion criteria, the bibliographic study included national journals on the theme, of the free access databases SCIELO and LILACS from 2008 to 2018. Results: Social experiences in universities promote the elderly a pleasurable old age, with socialization, the maintenance of friendships, self-knowledge, self-esteem, learning, the satisfaction of living. All this helps in coping with crises and losses of this phase and enables successful aging. Final considerations: given what was raised, it is concluded that the participation of the elderly in a university for the elderly contributes positively to a better quality of life in the aging process. This is because these sites offer the elderly the opportunity to live in a pleasurable and healthier way, as well as favors in maintaining biopsychosocial well-being.

Análisis de los recursos para la enseñanza de lectoescritura inicial a la luz del currículo dominicano

Los recursos didácticos utilizados para la enseñanza de la lectoescritura inicial (LEI) son herramientas que acercan a los estudiantes a la cultura letrada y permiten el reconocimiento del código escrito y sus características. La alineación de los recursos pedagógicos con lo prescrito en el currículo de enseñanza puede influir positivamente en el rendimiento de la lectoescritura en la República Dominicana, uno de los más bajos de la región. En este sentido, surge el interés de analizar las características de los recursos pedagógicos de la base de datos de lectoescritura inicial LEI-RD de acceso libre. Se diseñó un estudio mixto con el objetivo de determinar la alineación de los recursos de dicha base con el currículo dominicano vigente e identificar áreas de mejora. Los recursos se analizaron a partir de las siguientes dimensiones: finalidad, habilidades de la LEI, enfoque de enseñanza, animación lectora y pertinencia del recurso. Se seleccionaron aleatoriamente 115 recursos de un total de 485. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de los recursos proponen intervenciones acordes con los enfoques de enseñanza del currículo dominicano: el enfoque textual, funcional y comunicativo, y el enfoque procesual cognitivo por competencias. Se destaca la carencia de actividades destinadas a los niveles bajos de procesamiento lector y a la animación lectora. Se sugiere la revisión de los criterios de inclusión de los recursos que integran la base LEI-RD para garantizar la alineación con la evidencia actual sobre la enseñanza efectiva de la LEI y el currículo dominicano vigente.

Proteins of Wnt signaling pathway in cancer stem cells of human glioblastoma.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive primary glial brain tumor. The prognosis for GBM patients is not favorable, with the median survival time being 15 months. Its treatment resistance is associated with GBM cell population having cancer stem cells (CSCs). Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is a strategically important molecular mechanism, providing proliferation of stem cells of all types. This study compares the expression levels of signaling pathway proteins in CD133(+) CSCs and CD133(-) differentiated glioblastoma cells (DGCs). the present study used U-87MG cells of human glioblastoma, the material was tested for mycoplasma contamination. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) mass spectrometry was used for proteome analysis. Biological and molecular functions, signaling pathways and protein-protein interactions were analyzed using free-access databases: PubMed, PANTHER, Gene Ontology, Swiss-Prot and KEGG. Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) were analyzed using the STRING database (version 10). There were identified 589 proteins with significantly changed expression in CD133+ CSCs, as compared with CD133-DGCs (P<0.05). Bioinformatics analysis allowed to attribute 134 differentially expressed proteins to 16 signaling pathways. A significant increase in expression of eight Wnt signaling pathway proteins (APC, CSNK1E, CSNK1A, CSNK2A2, CSNK2B, CTNNB1, DVL1, RUVBL) was detected, as well as four proteins of the non-canonical Wnt pathway-RHOA, ROCK2, RAC2, DAAM1. Special attention should be paid to β-catenin (CTNNB1) with more than 13.98-fold increase of expression in CSCs and Disheveled-associated activator of morphogenesis 1 (DAAM1) with 6.15-fold higher upregulation level. proteins of Wnt/β-catenin signaling cascade are a prospective target for regulating CSCs activity.

A Worldwide and Unified Database of Surface Ruptures (SURE) for Fault Displacement Hazard Analyses

AbstractFault displacement hazard assessment is based on empirical relationships that are established using historic earthquake fault ruptures. These relationships evaluate the likelihood of coseismic surface slip considering on‐fault and off‐fault ruptures, for given earthquake magnitude and distance to fault. Moreover, they allow predicting the amount of fault slip at and close to the active fault of concern. Applications of this approach include land use planning, structural design of infrastructure, and critical facilities located on or close to an active fault.To date, the current equations are based on sparsely populated datasets, including a limited number of pre‐2000 events. In 2015, an international effort started to constitute a worldwide and unified fault displacement database (SUrface Ruptures due to Earthquakes [SURE]) to improve further hazard estimations. After two workshops, it was decided to unify the existing datasets (field‐based slip measurements) to incorporate recent and future cases, and to include new parameters relevant to properly describe the rupture.This contribution presents the status of the SURE database and delineates some perspectives to improve the surface‐faulting assessment. Original data have been compiled and adapted to the structure. The database encompasses 45 earthquakes from magnitude 5–7.9, with more than 15,000 coseismic surface deformation observations (including slip measurements) and 56,000 of rupture segments. Twenty earthquake cases are from Japan, 15 from United States, two from Mexico, Italy, and New Zealand, one from Kyrgystan, Ecuador, Turkey, and Argentina. Twenty‐four earthquakes are strike‐slip faulting events, 11 are normal or normal oblique, and 10 are reverse faulting.To pursue the momentum, the initial and common implementation effort needs to be continued and coordinated, and the maintenance and longevity of the database must be guaranteed. This effort must remain based on a large and open community of earthquake geologists to create a free and open access database.

Comparative Analysis of Energy Demand and CO2 Emissions on Different Typologies of Residential Buildings in Europe

The building sector accounts for one third of the global energy consumption and it is expected to grow in the next decades. This evidence leads researchers, engineers and architects to develop innovative technologies based on renewable energies and to enhance the thermal performance of building envelopes. In this context, the potential applicability and further energy performance analysis of these technologies when implemented into different building typologies and climate conditions are not easily comparable. Although massive information is available in data sources, the lack of standardized methods for data gathering and the non-public availability makes the comparative analyses more difficult. These facts limit the benchmarking of different building energy demand parameters such as space heating, cooling, air conditioning, domestic hot water, lighting and electric appliances. Therefore, the first objective of this study consists in providing a review about the common typologies of residential buildings in Europe from the main data sources. This study contains specific details on their architecture, building envelope, floor space and insulation properties. The second objective consists in performing a cross-country comparison in terms of energy demand for the applications with higher energy requirements in the residential building sector (heating and domestic hot water), as well as their related CO2 emissions. The approach of this comparative analysis is based on the residential building typology developed in TABULA/EPISCOPE projects. This comparative study provides a reference scenario in terms of energy demand and CO2 emissions for residential buildings and allows to evaluate the potential implementation of new supply energy technologies in hot, temperate and cold climate regions. From this study it was also concluded that there is a necessity of a free access database which could gather and classify reliable energy data in buildings.

Enfermagem e tecnovigilância na assistência segura

Introduction: The use of technology in health care has become more common evidencing the need for surveillance and development of barrier policies in favor of safe care. Objective: To elucidate the prevention of adverse events in the Nursing care linked to the implementation of techno vigilance monitoring. Method: Integrative literature review of Brazilian journals published between 2012–2017, using free access databases with publications in Portuguese structuring evaluation according to the steps proposed for this study mode. Results: From the 06 articles found (three in Lilacs, two in BDENF and one in Medline), four were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. Conclusions: Nursing is experiencing difficulties in the understanding the prevention and occurrence of adverse events especially when related to the use of equipment, determining the lack of these policies for safe care.

Last decade update for three-finger toxins: Newly emerging structures and biological activities.

Three-finger toxins (TFTs) comprise one of largest families of snake venom toxins. While they are principal to and the most toxic components of the venoms of the Elapidae snake family, their presence has also been detected in the venoms of snakes from other families. The first TFT, α-bungarotoxin, was discovered almost 50 years ago and has since been used widely as a specific marker of the α7 and muscle-type nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. To date, the number of TFT amino acid sequences deposited in the UniProt Knowledgebase free-access database is more than 700, and new members are being added constantly. Although structural variations among the TFTs are not numerous, several new structures have been discovered recently; these include the disulfide-bound dimers of TFTs and toxins with nonstandard pairing of disulfide bonds. New types of biological activities have also been demonstrated for the well-known TFTs, and research on this topic has become a hot topic of TFT studies. The classic TFTs α-bungarotoxin and α-cobratoxin, for example, have now been shown to inhibit ionotropic receptors of γ-aminobutyric acid, and some muscarinic toxins have been shown to interact with adrenoceptors. New, unexpected activities have been demonstrated for some TFTs as well, such as toxin interaction with interleukin or insulin receptors and even TFT-activated motility of sperm. This minireview provides a summarization of the data that has emerged in the last decade on the TFTs and their activities.

Predicting Adverse Drug Effects from Literature- and Database-Mined Assertions.

Given that adverse drug effects (ADEs) have led to post-market patient harm and subsequent drug withdrawal, failure of candidate agents in the drug development process, and other negative outcomes, it is essential to attempt to forecast ADEs and other relevant drug-target-effect relationships as early as possible. Current pharmacologic data sources, providing multiple complementary perspectives on the drug-target-effect paradigm, can be integrated to facilitate the inference of relationships between these entities. This study aims to identify both existing and unknown relationships between chemicals (C), protein targets (T), and ADEs (E) based on evidence in the literature. Cheminformatics and data mining approaches were employed to integrate and analyze publicly available clinical pharmacology data and literature assertions interrelating drugs, targets, and ADEs. Based on these assertions, a C-T-E relationship knowledge base was developed. Known pairwise relationships between chemicals, targets, and ADEs were collected from several pharmacological and biomedical data sources. These relationships were curated and integrated according to Swanson's paradigm to form C-T-E triangles. Missing C-E edges were then inferred as C-E relationships. Unreported associations between drugs, targets, and ADEs were inferred, and inferences were prioritized as testable hypotheses. Several C-E inferences, including testosterone → myocardial infarction, were identified using inferences based on the literature sources published prior to confirmatory case reports. Timestamping approaches confirmed the predictive ability of this inference strategy on a larger scale. The presented workflow, based on free-access databases and an association-based inference scheme, provided novel C-E relationships that have been validated post hoc in case reports. With refinement of prioritization schemes for the generated C-E inferences, this workflow may provide an effective computational method for the early detection of potential drug candidate ADEs that can be followed by targeted experimental investigations.

Curácia da cintilografia com 99mTc-Ubiquicidina (29-41) no diagnóstico diferencial de infecções musculoesqueléticas e processos inflamatórios estéreis

O diagnóstico diferencial entre infecção e processo inflamatório não infeccioso é crítico na avaliação de um paciente e sua análise por exames de imagem sensíveis e específicos se faz necessária. O objetivo desta revisão sistemática é determinar a acurácia da cintilografia com 99mTc-ubiquicidina (29-41) no diagnóstico diferencial de condições infecciosas e inflamações estéreis. A busca dos artigos foi realizada nas bases de dados de acesso livre Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), PubMed, LILACS, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS), Cochrane Library, Banco de Teses e Dissertações da CAPES e Health System Evidences com os descritores “ubiquicidin”, “ubiquicidina” ou “UBI” presentes no título ou resumo de artigos publicados entre janeiro de 2000 até janeiro de 2017. A análise dos artigos incluídos sugere que a cintilografia com 99mTc-ubiquicidina (29-41) é um método de elevada acurácia para o diagnóstico diferencial entre infecções musculoesqueléticas e inflamações assépticas.

Identification of species- and tissue-specific proteins using proteomic strategy

Proteomic technologies have proven to be very effective for detecting biochemical changes in meat products, such as changes in tissue- and species-specific proteins. In the tissues of cattle, pig, horse and camel M. longissimus dorsi both tissue- and species specific proteins were detected using two dimensional electrophoresis. Species-specific isoforms of several muscle proteins were also identified. The identified and described proteins of cattle, pig, horse and camel skeletal muscles (including mass spectra of the tryptic peptides) were added to the national free access database “Muscle organ proteomics”. This research has enabled the development of new highly sensitive technologies for meat product quality control against food fraud.

Early predicting a risk of preterm labour by analysis of antepartum electrohysterograhic signals

This study is aimed at evaluation of the capability to indicate the preterm labour risk by analysing the features extracted from the signals of electrical uterine activity. Free access database was used with 300 signals acquired in two groups of pregnant women who delivered at term (262 cases) and preterm (38 cases). Signal features comprised classical time domain description, spectral parameters and nonlinear measures of contractile activity. Their mean values were calculated for all the contraction episodes detected in each record and their statistical significance for recognition of two groups of recordings was provided. Obtained results were related to the previous study where the same features were applied but they were determined for entire signals. Influence of electrodes location, band-pass filter settings and gestation week was investigated. The obtained results showed that a spectral parameter – the median frequency was the most promising indicator of the preterm labour risk.

Realization of High Dynamic Range Imaging in the GLORIA Network and Its Effect on Astronomical Measurement

Citizen science project GLORIA (GLObal Robotic-telescopes Intelligent Array) is a first free- and open-access network of robotic telescopes in the world. It provides a web-based environment where users can do research in astronomy by observing with robotic telescopes and/or by analyzing data that other users have acquired with GLORIA or from other free-access databases. Network of 17 telescopes allows users to control selected telescopes in real time or schedule any more demanding observation. This paper deals with new opportunity that GLORIA project provides to teachers and students of various levels of education. At the moment, there are prepared educational materials related to events like Sun eclipse (measuring local atmosphere changes), Aurora Borealis (calculation of Northern Lights height), or transit of Venus (measurement of the Earth-Sun distance). Student should be able to learn principles of CCD imaging, spectral analysis, basic calibration like dark frames subtraction, or advanced methods of noise suppression. Every user of the network can design his own experiment. We propose advanced experiment aimed at obtaining astronomical image data with high dynamic range. We also introduce methods of objective image quality evaluation in order to discover how HDR methods are affecting astronomical measurements.

Cyanobacterial KnowledgeBase (CKB), a Compendium of Cyanobacterial Genomes and Proteomes.

Cyanobacterial KnowledgeBase (CKB) is a free access database that contains the genomic and proteomic information of 74 fully sequenced cyanobacterial genomes belonging to seven orders. The database also contains tools for sequence analysis. The Species report and the gene report provide details about each species and gene (including sequence features and gene ontology annotations) respectively. The database also includes cyanoBLAST, an advanced tool that facilitates comparative analysis, among cyanobacterial genomes and genomes of E. coli (prokaryote) and Arabidopsis (eukaryote). The database is developed and maintained by the Sub-Distributed Informatics Centre (sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India) of the National Facility for Marine Cyanobacteria, a facility dedicated to marine cyanobacterial research. CKB is freely available at http://nfmc.res.in/ckb/index.html.

Revisión sistemática sobre el Inventario Multifásico de Personalidad de Minnesota (MMPI)

Resumen El presente artículo buscó determinar la aplicabilidad de la prueba de personalidad Inventario Multifásico de Personalidad de Minnesota (MMPI) a través de los últimos 25 años, por medio de la metodología de revisión sistemática de la literatura de 41 estudios en bases de datos de libre acceso como: Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Cultura, MedlinePlus, Open Journal Systems, Dialnet, Scielo, Wiley Open Access, UNESCO, Latindex, Ebsco Host, Scielo y Redalyc; que permitieron recopilar información sobre el instrumento y su aplicación en diferentes contextos y momentos del tiempo, desde el año 1990 hasta el 2015. Se concluye que en la mayoría de las investigaciones se ha demostrado la validez y confiabilidad del MMPI y se reconoce la necesidad de continuar estudios en relación a la aplicación, validación y sistematización del instrumento.Abstract This article sought to determine the applicability of the test of personality Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI) through the last 25 years, through the methodology of systematic review of the literature in 41 studies in free access database such as: Organization of the United Nations for food and culture, MedlinePlus, Open Journal Systems , Dialnet, Scielo, Wiley Open Access, UNESCO, Latindex, Ebsco Host and Redalyc; which allowed to collect information about the instrument and its application in different contexts and moments from 1990 to 2015. It is concluded that most of the investigations have shown the validity and reliability of the MMPI as well as the need to continue studies in relation to the implementation, validation and systematization of the instrument.

CVC-FP and SGT: a new database for structural floor plan analysis and its groundtruthing tool

Recent results on structured learning methods have shown the impact of structural information in a wide range of pattern recognition tasks. In the field of document image analysis, there is a long experience on structural methods for the analysis and information extraction of multiple types of documents. Yet, the lack of conveniently annotated and free access databases has not benefited the progress in some areas such as technical drawing understanding. In this paper, we present a floor plan database, named CVC-FP, that is annotated for the architectural objects and their structural relations. To construct this database, we have implemented a groundtruthing tool, the SGT tool, that allows to make specific this sort of information in a natural manner. This tool has been made for general purpose groundtruthing: It allows to define own object classes and properties, multiple labeling options are possible, grants the cooperative work, and provides user and version control. We finally have collected some of the recent work on floor plan interpretation and present a quantitative benchmark for this database. Both CVC-FP database and the SGT tool are freely released to the research community to ease comparisons between methods and boost reproducible research.

Diagnostic and predictive performance and standardized threshold of traditional biomarkers for drug-induced liver injury in rats.

Traditional biomarkers such as alanine and aspartate aminotransferase (ALT, AST) and total bilirubin (TBIL) have been widely used for detecting drug-induced liver injury (DILI). Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed standardized thresholds for human as Hy's law, those for animals have not been determined, and predictability of these biomarkers for future onset of hepatic lesions remains unclear. In this study, we investigated these diagnostic and predictive performance of 10 traditional biomarkers for liver injury by receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve, using a free-access database where 142 hepatotoxic or non-hepatotoxic compounds were administrated to male rats (n=5253). Standardization of each biomarker value was achieved by calculating the ratio to control mean value, and the thresholds were determined under the condition of permitting 5% false positive. Of these 10 biomarkers, AST showed the best diagnostic performance. Furthermore, ALT and TBIL also showed high performance under the situation of hepatocellular necrosis and bile duct injury, respectively. Additionally, the availability of the diagnostic thresholds in difference testing facility was confirmed by the application of these thresholds to in-house prepared dataset. Meanwhile, incorrect diagnosis by the thresholds was also observed. Regarding prediction, all 10 biomarkers showed insufficient performance for future onset of hepatic lesions. In conclusion, the standardized diagnostic thresholds enable consistent evaluation of traditional biomarkers among different facilities, whereas it was suggested that novel biomarker is required for more accurate diagnosis and prediction of DILI.

How to kill inventors: testing the Massacrator© algorithm for inventor disambiguation

Inventor disambiguation is an increasingly important issue for users of patent data. We propose and test a number of refinements to the original Massacrator algorithm, originally proposed by Lissoni et al. (The keins database on academic inventors: methodology and contents, 2006) and now applied to APE-INV, a free access database funded by the European Science Foundation. Following Raffo and Lhuillery (Res Policy 38:1617–1627, 2009) we describe disambiguation as a three step process: cleaning&parsing, matching, and filtering. By means of sensitivity analysis, based on MonteCarlo simulations, we show how various filtering criteria can be manipulated in order to obtain optimal combinations of precision and recall (type I and type II errors). We also show how these different combinations generate different results for applications to studies on inventors’ productivity, mobility, and networking; and discuss quality issues related to linguistic issues. The filtering criteria based upon information on inventors’ addresses are sensitive to data quality, while those based upon information on co-inventorship networks are always effective. Details on data access and data quality improvement via feedback collection are also discussed.

“PI OF THE SKY” OFF-LINE EXPERIMENT WITH GLORIA

GLORIA is the first free and open-access network of robotic telescopes in the world. Based on the Web 2.0 environment, amateur and professional users can do research in astronomy by observing with robotic telescope, and/or analyzing data acquired with GLORIA, or from other free access databases. The GLORIA project develops free standards, protocols and tools for controlling Robotic Telescopes and related instrumentation, for scheduling observations in the telescope network, and for conducting so-called off-line experiments based on the analysis of astronomical data. This contribution summarizes the implementation and results from the first research level off-line demonstrator experiment implemented in GLORIA, which was based on data collected with the “Pi of the Sky” telescope in Chile.

Comparison Between Measured Mean Monthly Solar Insolation Data and Estimates from Swera Database for Salta City (Northwestern Argentina)

The lack of measured data for global solar insolation in the Argentine Northwest (ANW) was supplied using free-access databases available on the Internet. For Salta Capital metropolitan region, measured monthly mean global solar insolation and estimated monthly values from SWERA, SoDa and SSE databases are compared. The objective was to determine the degree of correlation of each database with measured values and the origin in found differences. SWERA data happened to be the best correlation, with the measured data (average RMSE% = 14%). The other databases have errors above 24 %, this being attributed to larger satellite grid cells. A linear model, developed using MLR, is presented. It offers better estimates than the databases (RMSE% of 6%), but only applies to Salta Capital.