Concurrent multithreaded programs are more complex than sequential ones due to inter-dependencies of threads over shared memory. Because of these, software architects and developers quickly become overwhelmed when trying to design and manage concurrent software. Existing approaches that try to support architecture efforts in this domain rely on the visualization of concurrency-related properties of software to ease its understanding, but they fail because i) the abstractions they use do not capture information of architectural significance, and because ii) raw visualization of the interdependencies does not scale. In this paper, we suggest a scalable solution that focuses on the abstraction of concurrency properties and their visualization using architectural views. Our framework for automatic extraction of concurrency-related architectural properties (ArchViMP) proposes i) a set of logical rules that abstract concurrency-related architecturally significant software properties and ii) a set of architectural views suitable for showing these concurrency properties.

Pesquisa referente a Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso de Graduação em Enfermagem inserida na Linha de Pesquisa Organização e Gestão do Cuidado dos Serviços de Saúde. O Objetivo desde estudo foi identificar as situações que contribuem ou dificultam a prática do autocuidado dos graduandos de Enfermagem de uma universidade privada do Rio de Janeiro durante o período da graduação e na vivência da pandemia do SARS-CoV-2. Foi realizado um estudo descritivo e exploratório, com abordagem qualiquantitativa em uma Instituição Privada de Ensino Superior situada na Zona Norte da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro por meio de entrevista semiestruturada através de formulário online. Os resultados das questões fechadas, perfil sociodemográfico e socioeconômico foram tabulados em percentual através do software Microsoft Excel, 2010e as questões abertas, qualitativas, foram submetidas à Análise de Conteúdo proposta por Bardim. Participaram da pesquisa 116 graduandos de Enfermagem com predominância em adultos jovens do sexo feminino, solteiros, sem filhos, advindos de família com formação nuclear com renda média familiar de 1 a 3 salários mínimos e que se dedicam aos estudos e trabalho em concomitância. Esta pesquisa atingiu seu objetivo expondo as dificuldades enfrentados na prática do autocuidado pelos graduandos de Enfermagem durante a graduação presencial, avaliando como seu pior fator o estresse advindo da necessidade de estudar em concomitância com atividade laboral e na avaliação da prática do autocuidado durante a pandemia com a virtualização das disciplinas, o principal fator estressor que dificulta a prática do autocuidado é a mudança brusca na rotina dos estudantes.

Social robot co-design requires aiding users as they imagine these novel devices within their everyday lives and enabling designers to understand and address users’ experiences. This paper presents the exploratory development and evaluation of a role-playing game aimed at identifying the desired features and uses of a social robot that can assist people diagnosed with depression. Participants (n = 16) played the game as a character with depression, designed a companion robot for that character, and chose reactions to daily challenges. Though participants initially selected robot capabilities based on their own needs, after the game they identified alternative designs that would better address daily challenges faced by individuals with depression. We discuss aspects of the game that allowed participants to understand how various robot characteristics can address the experience of depression and suggest how role-playing games can support users and designers in identifying beneficial features and uses of emerging robotic technologies.

Motion planning is a hard problem that can often overwhelm both users and designers: due to the difficulty in understanding the optimality of a solution, or reasons for a planner to fail to find any solution. Inspired by recent work in machine learning and task planning, in this paper we are guided by a vision of developing motion planners that can provide reasons for their output—thus potentially contributing to better user interfaces, debugging tools, and algorithm trustworthiness. Towards this end, we propose a preliminary taxonomy and a set of important considerations for the design of explainable motion planners, based on the analysis of a comprehensive user study of motion planning experts. We identify the kinds of things that need to be explained by motion planners ("explanation objects"), types of explanation, and several procedures required to arrive at explanations. We also elaborate on a set of qualifications and design considerations that should be taken into account when designing explainable methods. These insights contribute to bringing the vision of explainable motion planners closer to reality, and can serve as a resource for researchers and developers interested in designing such technology.

Motion planning is a hard problem that can often overwhelm both users and designers: due to the difficulty in understanding the optimality of a solution, or reasons for a planner to fail to find any solution. Inspired by recent work in machine learning and task planning, in this paper we are guided by a vision of developing motion planners that can provide reasons for their output—thus potentially contributing to better user interfaces, debugging tools, and algorithm trustworthiness. Towards this end, we propose a preliminary taxonomy and a set of important considerations for the design of explainable motion planners, based on the analysis of a comprehensive user study of motion planning experts. We identify the kinds of things that need to be explained by motion planners ("explanation objects"), types of explanation, and several procedures required to arrive at explanations. We also elaborate on a set of qualifications and design considerations that should be taken into account when designing explainable methods. These insights contribute to bringing the vision of explainable motion planners closer to reality, and can serve as a resource for researchers and developers interested in designing such technology.

Plasma protein binding refers to the binding of a drug to plasma proteins after entering the body. The measurement of plasma protein binding is essential during drug development and in clinical practice, as it provides a more detailed understanding of the available free concentration of a drug in the blood, which is in turn critical for pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics studies. In addition, the accurate determination of the free concentration of a drug in the blood is also highly important for therapeutic drug monitoring and in personalized medicine. The present study uses C18-coated solid-phase microextraction 96-pin devices to determine the free concentrations of a set of drugs in plasma, as well as the plasma protein binding of drugs with a wide range of physicochemical properties. It should be noted that the extracted amounts used to calculate the binding constants and plasma protein bindings should be measured at respective equilibrium for plasma and phosphate buffer. Therefore, special attention is placed on properly determining the equilibration times required to correctly estimate the free concentrations of drugs in the investigated systems. The plasma protein binding values obtained with the 96-pin devices are consistent with those reported in the literature. The 96-pin device used in this research can be easily coupled with a Concept96 or other automated robotic systems to create an automated plasma protein binding determination protocol that is both more time and labor efficient compared to conventional equilibrium dialysis and ultrafiltration methods.

What is the outcome of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using testicular spermatozoa obtained on the day of oocyte pick-up (OPU) or the day before OPU. Testicular spermatozoa were obtaining the one day before OPU does not affect fertilization rate, top quality embryo on day 3, and blastocyst utilization rate. Usually, TESE is performed just before OPU. OPU is generally cancelled if no sperm is retrieved. The use of fresh testicular spermatozoa, obtained the day before OPU could offer the couple and the caring team both medical and practical advantages. The benefits of this approach, however, has not been evaluated in detail. An uncontrolled preliminary study has revealed that regular fertilization and pregnancy rates could be achieved with sperm extraction performed one day before OPU. This was a single-center retrospective study in Bahceci BIH IVF center. Sixty-six patients suffering from azoospermia from January 2015 to December 2020 were evaluated. TESE was performed either on the OPU day (43 patients; group A) or one day before OPU (23 patients; group B). In this study, primary outcomes were motile spermatozoa at ICSI, fertilization, top quality embryo on day 3, and blastocyst utilization rate. Statistical analyses were performed with chi-squared tests. There is no statistical difference fertilization rate (72.3% vs. 72.2, p > 0.05), top quality embryo rate on day 3 (58.3% vs 58.3%, p > 0.05) and blast utilization rate (43.98% vs 49.58%, p > 0.05) between group A and B, respectively. The retrospective nature of this study may not eliminate potential bias. On the contrary, the strength of our study is that all procedures were performed by the same operators, so there are no operator-dependent differences. More research is needed to prove our findings. Wider implications of the findings: TESE procedure can be performed one day before OPU without compromising success. 1