A novel BESO methodology for topology optimization of ‎reinforced concrete structures : a two-loop approach

A new topology optimization methodology for reinforced concrete structures is proposed. The structures are optimized in two iterative loops, where different sensitivity criteria are used to determine the regions to be topologically optimized. For the first loop, the compliance criterion is used to determine the higher compliance elements and, consequently, remove the concrete from the computational domain. In the next loop, only failed concrete regions (Ottosen failure surface) are replaced by reinforcement, ensuring that complies with the von Mises criterion. In the end, the sizing of the reinforcements is obtained based on the principal forces in the steel regions. Results regarding the mechanical behavior, cost, volume, and mass of the optimized structures are presented in this study. A case study indicated that the proposed methodology can lead to volume, mass, and cost reductions of 20%, 21.5%, and 56%, respectively

Discal Cyst: a Rare Cause of Neurologic Compression in the Young Adult

Introduction: discal cysts are rare pathology. Its clinical presentation can be mistaken for disc herniation, with back pain, radiculopathy and neurological defi cit. It is more common in male patients in their fourth life decade. Because they are rare, there is no consensus about the treatment. A great variety of procedures, from medication for the pain to endoscopic or microdiscectomy excision, have been described. Objetive: Describe a case of discal cyst on the l4-l5 level with compression of l5 right nerve root treated successfully with a minimal invasive procedure. Study design: Case report. Methods: Review medical records, pertinent images, interview with the patient and surgical team, intraoperative and histopathological fi ndings. The surgical technique used was minimally invasive. Results: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated a cystic lesion imaging at the level of the L4-L5 disc. The cystic mass displaced the thecal sac dorsally compressed the L5 transversing root. The patient was submitted to a minimally invasive microendoscopic technique using a tubular retractor. He recovered completely after the procedure, presenting absence of leg pain and went back to his regular activities 3 weeks after the surgery. Histopathological examination of the cyst revealed thick fi brous connective tissue interspersed with areas of chronic infl ammation. Conclusion: Discal cysts are rare intraspinal lesions. They can trigger severe neurological symptoms, and should be differentiated from other forms of epidural cysts and tumors. There are many treatment options that can be chosen from but no consensus. We used a treatment that was less invasive than the ones described in the literature

Chemical composition and antibacterial activity of Cymbopogon citratus and Cymbopogon flexuosus essential oils

Plant secondary metabolites have attracted considerable attention from the industry as consumers are increasing their interest for natural products over chemically synthesized reagents to be used as additives in food, cosmetics or pharmaceuticals. Some plant essential oils show significant antimicrobial properties and this could be exploited to produce new food preservatives or novel antimicrobial formulations. Here we describe the extraction, chemical analysis and antimicrobial properties of grass lemon Cymbopogon citratus and Cymbopogon flexuosus essential oils. Essential oils were extracted from dried leaves using hydrodestilation and their composition was established by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Agar diffusion assays indicated that C. citratus and C. flexuosus essential oils act as antimicrobial agents against both gram negative and gram positive model organisms.  These data support that lemon grass essential oils can be used as an alternative for microbiological control

Androgen responsive intronic non-coding RNAs

BACKGROUND: Transcription of large numbers of non-coding RNAs originating from intronic regions of human genes has been recently reported, but mechanisms governing their biosynthesis and biological functions are largely unknown. In this work, we evaluated the existence of a common mechanism of transcription regulation shared by protein-coding mRNAs and intronic RNAs by measuring the effect of androgen on the transcriptional profile of a prostate cancer cell line. RESULTS: Using a custom-built cDNA microarray enriched in intronic transcribed sequences, we found 39 intronic non-coding RNAs for which levels were significantly regulated by androgen exposure. Orientation-specific reverse transcription-PCR indicated that 10 of the 13 were transcribed in the antisense direction. These transcripts are long (0.5–5 kb), unspliced and apparently do not code for proteins. Interestingly, we found that the relative levels of androgen-regulated intronic transcripts could be correlated with the levels of the corresponding protein-coding gene (asGAS6 and asDNAJC3) or with the alternative usage of exons (asKDELR2 and asITGA6) in the corresponding protein-coding transcripts. Binding of the androgen receptor to a putative regulatory region upstream from asMYO5A, an androgen-regulated antisense intronic transcript, was confirmed by chromatin immunoprecipitation. CONCLUSION: Altogether, these results indicate that at least a fraction of naturally transcribed intronic non-coding RNAs may be regulated by common physiological signals such as hormones, and further corroborate the notion that the intronic complement of the transcriptome play functional roles in the human gene-expression program

Fading Evaluation in the mm-Wave Band

[EN] A thorough millimeter-wave measurement campaign is carried out in an indoor environment with an aim at characterizing the short-term fading channel behavior. The measurements are conducted in a variety of scenarios, with frequencies ranging from 55 GHz to 65 GHz, in line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight conditions, and combinations of horizontal and vertical polarizations at both transmitter and receiver. A number of fading models are tested, namely Rayleigh, Rice, Nakagami-m, alpha-mu, kappa-mu, eta-mu, and alpha-eta-kappa-mu. The statistics under analysis are those characterizing the fading amplitude and the frequency selectivity. In particular, the probability density and cumulative distribution functions for the former and level crossing rate per bandwidth unit for the latter are the respective first-and second-order statistics used. To this end, from the experimental data, the parameters of the models are estimated and the corresponding theoretical curves are plotted and compared with the empirical ones. Whereas the required theoretical formulations of the first-order statistics of these models are already well known, those of the second-order statistics as well as these fitting process in such a band shown here are unprecedented in the literature.This work was supported in part by CNPq under Grant 304248/2014-2 and Grant 308365/2017-8 and in part by RNP, with resources from MCTIC, Grant No. No 01250.075413/2018-04, under the Radiocommunication Reference Center (Centro de Referencia em Radiocomunicacoes -CRR) project of the National Institute of Telecommunications (Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicacoes -Inatel), Brazil, and by the Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under the national project TEC2017-86779-C2-2-R, through the Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI) and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER). The associate editor coordinating the review of this article and approving it for publication was T. Kim.Rufino Marins, TR.; Dos Anjos, AA.; Rodrigo Peñarrocha, VM.; Rubio Arjona, L.; Reig, J.; Amaral De Souza, RA.; Yacoub, MD. (2019). Fading Evaluation in the mm-Wave Band. IEEE Transactions on Communications. 67(12):8725-8738. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCOMM.2019.2941493S87258738671

Monitoring fungal burden and viability of Sporothrix spp. in skin lesions of cats for predicting antifungal treatment response

Skin lesions in feline sporotrichosis usually present a high fungal burden, making cats an important source of infection. This study evaluated the fungal burden and isolation in skin lesions of feline sporotrichosis during treatment with itraconazole (ITZ), combined with or without potassium iodide (KI). Treatment-naïve cats with culture-confirmed sporotrichosis and presenting skin ulcers were treated for up to 40 weeks with oral ITZ alone (n = 74) or combined with KI (n = 56). These cats were submitted to monthly sampling of the same lesion for mycological culture and cytopathology until healing of lesion or up to twelve weeks. The fungal burden was expressed as the mean yeast cell count in three microscopic fields from imprint smears. The fungal burden before treatment was significantly higher in cats in which the lesion persisted and in cases of treatment failure when using ITZ alone. After twelve weeks, the median fungal burden decreased to zero in both treatment protocols, suggesting a potential decrease in the risk of transmission of Sporothrix spp. from cats. These findings encourage the early treatment of feline sporotrichosis as a control measure. Moreover, the fungal burden in feline sporotrichosis lesions can be a prognostic indicator and a parameter for choosing appropriate therapeutic regimen

Verificação de modelo computacional para placas com enrijecedores considerando condição de contorno de simetria

The present article presents a computational modelling of stiffened plates submitted to a uniformly distributed transversal load, allowing the numerical analysis of displacements and stress. The computational model was developed in the ANSYS software, based on Finite Element Method (FEM), using the SHELL281 finite element. This model was elaborated considering the symmetry boundary condition, allowing only one quarter of the stiffened plate to be numerically simulated. The simulations with this boundary condition demonstrated a computational processing gain in relation to the complete plate simulations. Besides, its use enabled the employment of more refined spatial discretization (meshes) than those used in models that consider the entire plate. In order to verify this computational model as well as to evaluate its accuracy in relation to the results obtained with the model that considers the whole plate, deflection and stress analysis were performed. The verification of the model was done using the independent mesh solution, obtained through a mesh convergence test. The results of the numerical model using the symmetry boundary condition demonstrated good accuracy over the whole plate computational model, both in the verification and in a comparative of the whole plate in relation to its equivalent with symmetry.O presente artigo apresenta a modelagem computacional de placas enrijecidas submetidas a uma carga transversal uniformemente distribuída, permitindo a análise numérica de deslocamentos e tensões. O modelo computacional foi desenvolvido no software ANSYS, baseado no Método dos Elementos Finitos (MEF), empregando o elemento finito SHELL281. Este modelo foi elaborado considerando a condição de contorno de simetria, possibilitando que somente um quarto da placa enrijecida fosse simulado numericamente. As simulações com esta condição de contorno demonstraram um ganho de processamento computacional em relação às simulações da placa completa. Além disso, a sua utilização possibilitou o uso de discretizações espaciais (malhas) mais refinadas do que as usadas em modelos que consideram a placa inteira. Com o objetivo de verificar esse modelo computacional assim como avaliar sua acurácia em relação aos resultados obtidos com o modelo que considera toda a placa, análises de deflexão e de tensão foram realizadas. A verificação do modelo foi feita usando a solução independente de malha, obtida através de um teste de convergência de malha. Os resultados do modelo numérico utilizando a condição de contorno de simetria demonstraram uma boa precisão em relação ao modelo computacional da placa completa, tanto na verificação quanto em um comparativo da placa inteira em relação a seu equivalente com simetria

Critérios de delimitação de áreas de influência em Estudos de Impacto Ambiental de rodovias: abordagem de processos de dinâmica superficial

O objetivo deste artigo foi avaliar os critérios de delimitação de áreas de estudo e de influência em Estudos de Impacto Ambiental (EIAs) de rodovias, com foco em componentes do meio físico associados aos processos de dinâmica superficial. Foram analisados os quatro processos de licenciamento ambiental da Rodovia dos Tamoios, localizada no litoral norte do estado de São Paulo. Os resultados demonstraram que o desmembramento e o licenciamento de um mesmo empreendimento em diferentes EIAs e Relatórios de Impacto Ambiental (Rima) em processos distintos em períodos de tempo curtos dificultam a avaliação integrada da viabilidade ambiental do empreendimento, inclusive a própria delimitação das áreas de estudo e de influência. Pode-se concluir, ainda, que não houve discussão sobre os critérios usados para estabelecer essas áreas nos EIAs analisados, inclusive nos próprios Termos de Referência, impossibilitando compreender como se chegou aos limites propostos, especialmente quando se trata de faixas fixas ao longo do traçado do empreendimento; verificou-se que essas porções não foram definidas de acordo com os diferentes componentes dos meios físico, biótico e socioeconômico. Como proposta, recomenda-se que os processos de dinâmica superficial sejam usados como os critérios básicos para delimitação das áreas de influência, principalmente da Área Diretamente Afetada (ADA), para os componentes de Geomorfologia, Geologia, Pedologia e Geotecnia. E que em estudos de empreendimentos lineares em ambientes os diferentes relevos e as bacias hidrográficas sejam as unidades de gerenciamento territorial usadas para desenvolvimento dos estudos, pelo menos no que se refere à Área de Influência Indireta (AII) e à Área de Influência Direta (AID). Outro ponto importante é que a discussão sobre os limites das áreas de estudo e de influência dos empreendimentos se inicie durante a elaboração dos estudos e dos projetos anteriores ao licenciamento ambiental.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the geographic boundaries (“influenced and study areas”) delimitation criteria on highways Environmental Impact Studies (EIS), focusing on the physic environment associated with dynamic surficial process. Means to achieve, it was analyzed four environmental licenses proceedings of Tamoios’ highway, located in north coast of São Paulo State in Brazil. Outcomes show that this split of the environmental licenses proceedings into four EIS in a short time does not enable the whole feasibility assessment, including the geographic boundaries delimitation. There was not a discussion about the criteria used to define these areas, so it is not possible to understand the proposed limits, especially because they are land bands nearby the linear construction. In addition, the limitation did not examine physic and biotic environment and socioeconomic components. As a suggestion, the delimitation criteria of the closest geographic boundaries (ADA) must use dynamic surficial process information and geomorphologic, geology, pedology and geotechnics components. Likewise, the proposal is to restrict the larger geographic boundaries to watershed limits for linear projects. Another important topic is to discuss the delimitation issue during the EIS scope, just before the environmental license begin.

MEDICINES WASTE POLICIES AND THE POPULATION KNOWLEDGE IN BRAZIL

Objective: To investigate the degree of knowledge of the patients enrolled in the Unified Health System of the Medicine School of ABC (Faculdade de Medicina do ABC) regarding the proper use and disposal of medicaments. Methods: Participants were recruited for convenience, during their medical appointments at the clinic of the Medical School of ABC (Santo André, Sao Paulo, Brazil) in the period from 04 August to 30 September 2014. Data collection was conducted through a self-administered poll designed specifically for the purpose of this study, which consisted of 25 questions multiple choice about socioeconomic issues and the subject disposal of drugs, consumption and environmental pollution. Results: We selected the 140 patients’ polls. Most of them is of white ethnicity (58%) and female (58%). Level of education: 31% have completed secondary education (31%) or incomplete graduation (19%). Most of the participants (76%) buy drugs without a prescription, and most families (76%) seek understanding by reading the labels. 71.43% reported knowing that incorrect disposal of drugs could contaminate the environment, but 78% reported never having seen or received information about these. After using, 22.15% maintains the medication at home for future use, 55% of subjects reported improper disposal sites and 13% are delivered in health care institutions. Conclusion: Our study has showed that most participants inappropriately use and dispose of drugs, even though they know they can contaminate the environment