Geodetic Reference System and the Accuracy Estimates of the Brazilian GPS Network

As soluções adotadas em alguns países com a finalidade de adequar o sistema de referência com as atividades geodésicas efetuadas com GPS são descritas. Tais soluções têm sido o estabelecimento de uma nova rede passiva de pontos ou um Sistema de Controle Ativo (SCA). Atenção especial tem sido direcionada na proposição brasileira, a qual é uma rede com rastreamento contínuo dos satélites GPS, apresentando algumas características de um SCA. Alguns testes foram efetuados para verificar a precisão factível de ser obtida com a rede proposta. Resultados têm mostrado precisão relativa na ordem de 2 a 0,1 partes por milhão (ppm) para a diferença em altitude e 1.3 a 0.05 ppm para as diferenças nas componentes horizontais

Autophagy Induction as a Therapeutic Strategy for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Autophagy is a major, conserved cellular pathway by which cells deliver cytoplasmic contents to lysosomes for degradation. Genetic studies have revealed extensive links between autophagy and neurodegenerative disease, and disruptions to autophagy may contribute to pathology in some cases. Autophagy degrades many of the toxic, aggregate-prone proteins responsible for such diseases, including mutant huntingtin (mHTT), alpha-synuclein (α-syn), tau, and others, raising the possibility that autophagy upregulation may help to reduce levels of toxic protein species, and thereby alleviate disease. This review examines autophagy induction as a potential therapy in several neurodegenerative diseases-Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, polyglutamine diseases, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Evidence in cells and in vivo demonstrates promising results in many disease models, in which autophagy upregulation is able to reduce the levels of toxic proteins, ameliorate signs of disease, and delay disease progression. However, the effective therapeutic use of autophagy induction requires detailed knowledge of how the disease affects the autophagy-lysosome pathway, as activating autophagy when the pathway cannot go to completion (e.g., when lysosomal degradation is impaired) may instead exacerbate disease in some cases. Investigating the interactions between autophagy and disease pathogenesis is thus a critical area for further research

A Real Time GPS River Level Monitoring System

This paper presents the current progress of the RiGHt proj-ect, 'River Level Monitoring using GPS Heighting'. The aim of the project is to develop an integrated system to allow the continuous monitoring of river heights using a buoy equipped with GPS, satellite communications, and using Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques