The automotive industry is facing an unprecedented technological transformation towards fully autonomous vehicles. Optimists predict that, by 2030, cars will be sufficiently reliable, affordable, and ...common to displace most current human driving tasks. To cope with these trends, autonomous vehicles require reliable perception systems to hear and see all the surroundings, being light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors a key instrument for recreating a 3D visualization of the world. However, for a reliable operation, such systems require LiDAR sensors to provide high-resolution 3D representations of the car's vicinity, which results in millions of data points to be processed in real-time. With this article we propose the ALFA-Pi, a data packet decoder and reconstruction system fully deployed on an embedded reconfigurable hardware platform. By resorting to field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, ALFA-Pi is able to interface different LiDAR sensors at the same time, while providing custom representation outputs to high-level perception systems. By accelerating the LiDAR interface, the proposed system outperforms current software-only approaches, achieving lower latency in the data acquisition and data decoding tasks while reaching high performance ratios.
In the near future, autonomous vehicles with full self-driving features will populate our public roads. However, fully autonomous cars will require robust perception systems to safely navigate the ...environment, which includes cameras, RADAR devices, and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors. LiDAR is currently a key sensor for the future of autonomous driving since it can read the vehicle's vicinity and provide a real-time 3D visualization of the surroundings through a point cloud representation. These features can assist the autonomous vehicle in several tasks, such as object identification and obstacle avoidance, accurate speed and distance measurements, road navigation, and more. However, it is crucial to detect the ground plane and road limits to safely navigate the environment, which requires extracting information from the point cloud to accurately detect common road boundaries. This article presents a survey of existing methods used to detect and extract ground points from LiDAR point clouds. It summarizes the already extensive literature and proposes a comprehensive taxonomy to help understand the current ground segmentation methods that can be used in automotive LiDAR sensors.
•A total of 71 articles were reviewed reporting applications of the FCQ.•Reviewed applications in over 40 countries and translation in over 20 languages.•Strong lack of uniformity of procedures ...across the different studies.•Recommendations arise for the development of future applications of the FCQ.
The Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) is a 36-item instrument assessing the importance of a number of factors that influence food choice: “health”, “sensory appeal”, “price”, “convenience”, “mood”, “natural content”, “weight control”, “familiarity” and “ethical concern”. The FCQ already counts with applications from over 40 countries and its translation into more than 20 languages. The main objective of this paper is to review the application of the FCQ across cultures considering both cross-cultural and single country studies. A systematic review has been performed enclosing all the studies that apply the FCQ (in full, partially or following an adaptation) referred in the Web of Science and/or Scopus. After the scrutiny of more than 1,000 articles, 71 original articles were retrieved for this analysis. For each article, the following methodological aspects were considered: type of application, response scales, translation, scope, sampling procedures and data analysis strategies. For a smaller set of articles, reporting five cross-cultural studies (fully applying the FCQ), an additional analysis was performed to evaluate response styles, compare scale usage between countries and identify the most and least relevant food choice criteria. Several studies have shown the invariance of the FCQ across cultures, while others present the need for adaptations of the FCQ. Critical appraisal suggests that the original set of items should be adapted to accommodate the different cultures under study and that response scales should have a large number of points. The major conclusion is the strong lack of uniformity of procedures across the different studies hindering an adequate comparison of results between cultures.
•Norwegians had a higher acceptance of edible insects than Portuguese.•Consumers were segmented into four clusters according to their acceptance levels.•Disgust towards insects had the greatest ...negative effect on acceptance.•Interest/curiosity in novel foods had a positive impact on acceptance.•Sociodemographic factors had different influences across the two countries.
Entomophagy – intentional consumption of insects – is practiced in several regions of the world, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the Western world, edible insects have been growing in popularity as novel food and feed. The main objective of this cross-cultural study, performed in Portugal and Norway, was to evaluate the determinants of consumers’ acceptance of insects as food and feed. An online-based survey (n = 666, LimeSurvey -Portugal- and EyeQuestion -Norway-) composed of nine different sections, assessing acceptance of insects as food and feed, sociodemographic characteristics, attitudes towards edible insects and food choice motives was applied. Results showed that Norwegian consumers had a higher acceptance of insects as food or feed than Portuguese consumers did. It was also possible to divide consumers into four segments according to their acceptance level: Disgusted, Rejecters, Feed Acceptors and Acceptors. Considering the determinants of acceptance/rejection, disgust towards insects was the variable with the largest negative impact on either forms of entomophagy for both countries. On the other hand, consumers who seek new food experiences tend to have a higher acceptance of insects as food. Sociodemographic characteristics also influenced the acceptance of insects as food and feed, although differently for Norway and Portugal, while food choice motivations (convenience, health and ecological welfare) had minimal impact. These results highlight the importance of diminishing disgust reactions towards edible insects and to successfully marketing entomophagy to more neophilic consumers. This can be potentially obtained by improving the sensory appeal and experiences associated with edible insects.
Asia is considered an important source of influenza A virus (IAV) pandemics, owing to large, diverse viral reservoirs in poultry and swine. However, the zoonotic origins of the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza ...pandemic virus (pdmH1N1) remain unclear, due to conflicting evidence from swine and humans. There is strong evidence that the first human outbreak of pdmH1N1 occurred in Mexico in early 2009. However, no related swine viruses have been detected in Mexico or any part of the Americas, and to date the most closely related ancestor viruses were identified in Asian swine. Here, we use 58 new whole-genome sequences from IAVs collected in Mexican swine to establish that the swine virus responsible for the 2009 pandemic evolved in central Mexico. This finding highlights how the 2009 pandemic arose from a region not considered a pandemic risk, owing to an expansion of IAV diversity in swine resulting from long-distance live swine trade.
Staphylococcus pseudintermedius is a major commensal bacterium of the skin and mucosae of dogs and an opportunistic agent responsible for several clinical infections, such as pyoderma, otitis, and ...surgical wound infections. The emergence of methicillin-resistant S. pseudintermedius (MRSP) has become a problem of great concern in veterinary and human medicine because it is multidrug resistant (MDR) and can also infect humans. This study aimed to identify the occurrence of Staphylococcus spp. in infected patients and investigate the antimicrobial resistance profiles and molecular structure of MRSP isolates. Samples were obtained from two different veterinary clinics; suggestive colonies were submitted to matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-ToF) mass spectrometry and confirmed at the species level by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Sequencing of the 16S rRNA and rpoB genes were used in selected samples that were not identified by MALDI-ToF and by the species-specific PCR. Antimicrobial susceptibility and PCR detection of mecA were performed. MRSP isolates were subjected to multilocus sequence typing. Of all the clinical staphylococci (n = 131), 98 (74.8%) were identified as S. pseudintermedius. Multidrug resistance (resistance to ≥3 classes of antimicrobials) was observed in 63.2% of S. pseudintermedius isolates, and 24.5% of S. pseudintermedius isolates were methicillin-resistant. Half of the MRSP isolates were isolated from surgical site infections. Among the ten sequence types (ST) identified, nine were novel. ST71 was the most prevalent and associated with resistance to fluoroquinolones. Prior antimicrobial therapy, hospitalization, and surgical site infections seemed to be risk factors for MRSP acquisition. The present study showed a high rate of MDR staphylococci in infected dogs. MRSP was isolated from different clinical conditions, mainly surgical site infections. Additionally, this is the first study to extensively investigate the population structure of MRSP in Brazil, which revealed the dispersion of CC71 and nine novel ST. These findings raise concerns for both animal and human health due to the zoonotic potential of this species and limited therapeutic options available for MRSP infections.
A graph G is t-admissible if it has a spanning tree T such that any adjacent vertices in G are at a distance at most t in T, in which case T is called a tree t-spanner of G. We denote as the stretch ...index ofG, or σ(G), the smallest value t such that G is t-admissible. Despite having a polynomial decider for t=2, the problem is NP-complete for t≥4, while the t=3 variant remains open after decades since its proposal.
The present work elaborates algorithms to create graphs with known stretch indexes and/or admissibility factors. Indeed, we show how to build a dataset providing the parameter σ of all 12,111 isomorphism classes of connected graphs from 3 to 8 vertices and discuss random generation methods for t-admissible and non-t-admissible graphs of arbitrary sizes. These techniques give us the ability to study the problem from machine learning’s perspective. We show how both lazy and eager models can have high performance under interesting testing conditions, even for instances in the NP-complete spectrum of the problem.
Foodborne diseases (FBD) generate a substantial burden on society and individual; however, it is not clear how consumers perceive the impact of different consequences of FBD on individual lifestyles. ...This study aims to investigate consumer risk perceptions of FBD, considering different consequences and scenarios. A cross-sectional study was carried out with 150 consumers from ten restaurants in Brazil. Consumers were interviewed in the restaurant post-food consumption to determine the personal risk of experiencing FBD. The restaurant food safety measures was assessed using a validated checklist. A FBD risk score was calculated. Ten questions were used to assess consumers' risk perceptions. The likelihood perception (L) of FBD was measured according to three contexts: actual restaurant of food consumption, another restaurant, and the consumers’ home. The consequences (C) of FBD on consumers' lifestyle were measured considering the impact on financial, performance, social, physical, psychological, and time aspects. Thus, 21 measures of cumulative risk perception (3L x 7C) were established. Findings indicated that consumers perceived the likelihood of FBD as low, mainly when considering food consumed at the actual restaurant and home. It is noted that risk perception was determined as higher when considering performance, physical, and time consequences. There was no association between the risk assessment determined for the restaurant and consumer risk perceptions from such restaurants. Consumers were skeptical about their personal likelihood of experiencing FBD, unaware of the actual risk associated with FDB. However, consumers consider that the impact of FBD on their performance, physical, and time is relevant. In a multidimensional way the risk assessment could be helpful to understand consumer behavior relating to food and restaurant choices. Understanding consumer fears and perceptions generate invaluable insight and data that can be used to develop targeted educational campaigns and food safety strategies.
•Consumers underestimate the risk of foodborne diseases when eating away from home.•The consumer is willing to pay, on average, 30% more for a safer meal.•The risk perceptions were not associated with the risk assessment of the restaurants.•Performance, time, and health were the consequences with higher risk perceptions.
The t-admissibility problem aims to decide whether a graph G has a spanning tree T in which the distance between any two adjacent vertices of G is at most t. Regarding its optimization version, the ...smallest t for which G is t-admissible is the stretch index of G, denoted by σT(G). The problem of deciding whether σT(G)≤t, t≥4 is NP-complete and polynomial-time solvable for t=2. However, deciding if t=3 is an open problem. We determine 3-admissible graph classes by studying graphs with few P4's, and we partially classify the PvsNP-complete dichotomy of the t-admissibility problem for (k,ℓ)-graphs. These graph classes generalize some others in which the computational complexity of the t-admissibility problem was already determined. Moreover, we determine the stretch index for cycle-power graphs and for (2,1)-chordal graphs, which are subclasses of (k,ℓ)-graphs and the t-admissibility problem is NP-complete.
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•A new vaccine for Covid-19 will not instantaneously be accepted as treatment by all.•A new vaccine for Covid-19 is not instantaneously available to all people worldwide.•The ...hyperimmune serum is about 150 times more potent than the convalescent plasm.•Hyperimmune serum can be an important therapeutic alternative against SARS-CoV-2 for infected people with coronavirus.
Since the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, different treatment strategies have been explored. These mainly involve the development of antimicrobial, antiviral, and/or anti-inflammatory agents as well as vaccine production. However, other potential options should be more avidly investigated since vaccine production on a worldwide level, and the anti-vaccination movement, also known as anti-vax or vaccine hesitancy by many communities, are still real obstacles without a ready solution. This review presents recent findings on the potential therapeutic advantages of heterologous serotherapy for the treatment of COVID-19. We present not only the effective use in animal models of hyperimmune sera against this coronavirus but also strategies, and protocols for the production of anti-SARS-CoV-2 sera. Promising antigens are also indicated such as the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in SARS-CoV-2 S protein, which is already in phase 2/3 clinical trial, and the trimeric protein S, which was shown to be up to 150 times more potent than the serum from convalescent donors. Due to the high death rate, the treatment for those currently infected with coronavirus cannot be ignored. Therefore, the potential use of anti-SARS-CoV-2 hyperimmune sera should be carefully but urgently evaluated in phase 2/3 clinical studies.
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