Entre especialização e diversificação industrial: por um desenvolvimento regional durável

The article operates with the concepts of diversification and industrial specialization in the regional context, analyzing two areas of the state of Rio Grande do Sul: Caxias do Sul and the Sinos River Valley. It characterizes these areas, showing their vulnerabilities and potentialities in terms of a durable regional development. In the theoretical context in which the topic is located regional specialization has been considered as a factor that is highly favorable to the development of areas that aim at a competitive insertion in the global economy. Regional industrial diversification, however, is rarely pointed out by the literature as an advantage to be emphasized. Therefore, the author took two areas with quite different industrial profiles with the purpose of showing that the statement mentioned above is not an absolute truth. In other words, the article shows that the area of the Sinos Valley, which is specialized in the leather-footwear chain, presented great vulnerability to external factors by suffering the consequences of the oscillations of the international market, which jeopardizes its development in the medium and long term. In the diversified area of Caxias do Sul the situation is quite different, once its dynamism didn’t show strong variations. The stable growth of that area enables one to conclude that the industrial diversification had a balancing effect to a certain extent. The methodology adopted is based on data of RAIS on industrial jobs by municipality. Starting from them, location quotients were calculated and a typology (worked out by researchers of IBGE) was adapted in order to characterize the specialization/diversification of the municipalities. The article concentrates on the period 1990-2002, when the process of industrial restructuring caused important changes in the Brazilian economy, which makes it possible to discuss how those areas responded to the new reality.Key words: Regional economy; industrial diversification; local development.O texto trabalha com os conceitos de diversificação e de especialização industrial no âmbito regional, por meio da análise de duas regiões gaúchas: Caxias do Sul e Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Caracterizamos essas regiões, mostrando suas vulnerabilidades e suas potencialidades, na perspectiva de um desenvolvimento regional durável. No contexto teórico em que o tema está situado, a especialização regional tem sido considerada como fator altamente favorável ao desenvolvimento das regiões que visam a uma inserção competitiva na economia globalizada. A diversificação industrial regional, entretanto, raramente é apontada pela bibliografia como uma vantagem a ser enfatizada. Por isso, tomamos duas regiões, com perfis industriais bastante distintos, com o fito de mostrar que a assertiva acima não é uma verdade absoluta. Ou seja, nosso estudo constatou que a região especializada na cadeia produtiva coureiro-calçadista apresentou grande vulnerabilidade a fatores externos, sofrendo as conseqüências das oscilações do mercado internacional, o que compromete o seu desenvolvimento a médio e longo prazo. Quanto à região diversificada de Caxias do Sul, a situação é diferente, uma vez que seu dinamismo não apresentou fortes variações. O crescimento estável dessa região autoriza concluir que a diversificação industrial exerceu um papel equilibrador, em certa medida. Quanto à metodologia adotada, tomamos por base os dados da RAIS de emprego industrial por município e a partir deles calculamos os quocientes de localização, bem como adaptamos uma tipologia (elaboradapor pesquisadores do IBGE) para caracterizar a especialização/diversificação dos municípios. Privilegiamos o período 1990-2002, quando o processo de reestruturação industrial provocou importantes mudanças na economia brasileira, o que nos permite averiguar como foram as reações das regiões a essa nova realidade.Palavras-chave: Economia regional; diversificação industrial; desenvolvimento local

Entre especialização e diversificação industrial: por um desenvolvimento regional durável

The article operates with the concepts of diversification and industrial specialization in the regional context, analyzing two areas of the state of Rio Grande do Sul: Caxias do Sul and the Sinos River Valley. It characterizes these areas, showing their vulnerabilities and potentialities in terms of a durable regional development. In the theoretical context in which the topic is located regional specialization has been considered as a factor that is highly favorable to the development of areas that aim at a competitive insertion in the global economy. Regional industrial diversification, however, is rarely pointed out by the literature as an advantage to be emphasized. Therefore, the author took two areas with quite different industrial profiles with the purpose of showing that the statement mentioned above is not an absolute truth. In other words, the article shows that the area of the Sinos Valley, which is specialized in the leather-footwear chain, presented great vulnerability to external factors by suffering the consequences of the oscillations of the international market, which jeopardizes its development in the medium and long term. In the diversified area of Caxias do Sul the situation is quite different, once its dynamism didn’t show strong variations. The stable growth of that area enables one to conclude that the industrial diversification had a balancing effect to a certain extent. The methodology adopted is based on data of RAIS on industrial jobs by municipality. Starting from them, location quotients were calculated and a typology (worked out by researchers of IBGE) was adapted in order to characterize the specialization/diversification of the municipalities. The article concentrates on the period 1990-2002, when the process of industrial restructuring caused important changes in the Brazilian economy, which makes it possible to discuss how those areas responded to the new reality.Key words: Regional economy; industrial diversification; local development.O texto trabalha com os conceitos de diversificação e de especialização industrial no âmbito regional, por meio da análise de duas regiões gaúchas: Caxias do Sul e Vale do Rio dos Sinos. Caracterizamos essas regiões, mostrando suas vulnerabilidades e suas potencialidades, na perspectiva de um desenvolvimento regional durável. No contexto teórico em que o tema está situado, a especialização regional tem sido considerada como fator altamente favorável ao desenvolvimento das regiões que visam a uma inserção competitiva na economia globalizada. A diversificação industrial regional, entretanto, raramente é apontada pela bibliografia como uma vantagem a ser enfatizada. Por isso, tomamos duas regiões, com perfis industriais bastante distintos, com o fito de mostrar que a assertiva acima não é uma verdade absoluta. Ou seja, nosso estudo constatou que a região especializada na cadeia produtiva coureiro-calçadista apresentou grande vulnerabilidade a fatores externos, sofrendo as conseqüências das oscilações do mercado internacional, o que compromete o seu desenvolvimento a médio e longo prazo. Quanto à região diversificada de Caxias do Sul, a situação é diferente, uma vez que seu dinamismo não apresentou fortes variações. O crescimento estável dessa região autoriza concluir que a diversificação industrial exerceu um papel equilibrador, em certa medida. Quanto à metodologia adotada, tomamos por base os dados da RAIS de emprego industrial por município e a partir deles calculamos os quocientes de localização, bem como adaptamos uma tipologia (elaboradapor pesquisadores do IBGE) para caracterizar a especialização/diversificação dos municípios. Privilegiamos o período 1990-2002, quando o processo de reestruturação industrial provocou importantes mudanças na economia brasileira, o que nos permite averiguar como foram as reações das regiões a essa nova realidade.Palavras-chave: Economia regional; diversificação industrial; desenvolvimento local

Theoretical and Experimental Investigations Regarding Open Volumetric Receivers of CRS

AbstractConcentrated sunlight is absorbed in solar thermal power plants by heat resistant absorbers and converted into usable heat which is transferred to a carrier medium. In solar tower power plants such as the plant in Jülich porous absorbers can reach temperatures up to 1000°C and higher. At this power plant air as heat transfer medium is sucked in through the absorber and heated up to about 700°C. The absorber is composed of highly porous ceramic or metal wire structures. The SIJ investigates the optimization of solar absorption and the convective heat transfer to the air using thermo and fluid mechanical calculations. In such simulations the key quantities are the penetration depth of solar radiation κ and the volumetric heat transfer coefficient αv, which indicates how much energy - depending on the volume and temperature difference - is transferred by convection between solid and fluid. The attenuation of the radiation into the depth of the absorber is described generally by an exponential function with parameter κ. This is accompanied by heat transfer to the structure. Existing models of the key quantities have been validated by experimental data

Muscle Activation in Individuals Who are Status-Post a Stroke during Over Ground, Treadmill, and Body Weight Supported Gait: A Comparative Study

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate individuals who are status post stroke during ambulation over ground, on a treadmill without support, and on a treadmill with partial body weight support (PBWS) to determine if there are any differences in muscle activation of major muscle groups in the lower extremity. Subjects: Two subjects were recruited for this study. Subjects were included if they were over the age of 50 years, could fulfill a two-hour time commitment, and walk independently with or without the use of an assistive device. Subjects were excluded if they have had surgery or an existing orthopedic involvement of the lower extremities. Instrumentation: Sensor surface electrodes were used to pick up electromyography (EMG) activity. EMG activity was collected and final data is presented as percent of normalized EMG activity as an average of four to five gait cycles for each of the support trials. Procedure: Consent forms were reviewed and signed by each participant. Electrodes and a heel switch were placed on the involved lower extremity. Subjects performed two trial walks over level ground. Subjects also performed three treadmill ambulation conditions in random order: ambulation on the treadmill without a harness (trm), ambulation on the treadmill with a harness and no body weight support (trmh), and ambulation on the treadmill with a harness and PBWS of 15% (trms). Subjects ambulated for two minutes and EMG activity was recorded for 30 seconds at the end of each minute during each trial condition. Data Analysis: The mean EMG activity of the second trial for all ambulation conditions was calculated for both stance and swing phases of each subject. Descriptive statistics were then used to compare muscle activation across conditions, as well as rank EMG mean muscle activity for each trial condition from highest to lowest. Results: EMG rankings were inconsistent across conditions, but both subjects had the least gastrocnemius activity during the trms condition. Conclusion and Clinical Implication: There were no major findings or trends to suggest differences or similarities in muscle activation between any of the conditions for either subject. Therefore, further research is needed

Chemical Modification of Reactive Multilayered Films Fabricated from Poly(2-Alkenyl Azlactone)s: Design of Surfaces that Prevent or Promote Mammalian Cell Adhesion and Bacterial Biofilm growth

We report an approach to the design of reactive polymer films that can be functionalized post-fabrication to either prevent or promote the attachment and growth of cells. Our approach is based on the reactive layer-bylayer assembly of covalently crosslinked thin films using a synthetic polyamine and a polymer containing reactive azlactone functionality. Our results demonstrate (i) that the residual azlactone functionality in these films can be exploited to immobilize amine-functionalized chemical motifs similar to those that promote or prevent cell and protein adhesion when assembled as self-assembled monolayers on gold-coated surfaces and (ii) that the immobilization of these motifs changes significantly the behaviors and interactions of cells with the surfaces of these polymer films. We demonstrate that films treated with the hydrophobic molecule decylamine support the attachment and growth of mammalian cells in vitro. In contrast, films treated with the hydrophilic carbohydrate D-glucamine prevent cell adhesion and growth almost completely. The results of additional experiments suggest that these large differences in cell behavior can be understood, at least in part, in terms of differences in the abilities of these two different chemical motifs to promote or prevent the adsorption of protein onto film-coated surfaces. We demonstrate further that this approach can be used to pattern regions of these reactive films that resist the initial attachment and subsequent invasion of mammalian cells for periods of at least one month in the presence of serum-containing cell culture media. Finally, we report that films that prevent the adhesion and growth of mammalian cells also prevent the initial formation of bacterial biofilms when incubated in the presence of the clinically relevant pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The results of these studies, collectively, suggest the basis of general approaches to the fabrication and functionalization of thin films that prevent, promote, or pattern cell growth or the formation of biofilms on surfaces of interest in the contexts of both fundamental biological studies and a broad range of other practical applications

Enhancement of vaccinia virus based oncolysis with histone deacetylase inhibitors

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDI) dampen cellular innate immune response by decreasing interferon production and have been shown to increase the growth of vesicular stomatitis virus and HSV. As attenuated tumour-selective oncolytic vaccinia viruses (VV) are already undergoing clinical evaluation, the goal of this study is to determine whether HDI can also enhance the potency of these poxviruses in infection-resistant cancer cell lines. Multiple HDIs were tested and Trichostatin A (TSA) was found to potently enhance the spread and replication of a tumour selective vaccinia virus in several infection-resistant cancer cell lines. TSA significantly decreased the number of lung metastases in a syngeneic B16F10LacZ lung metastasis model yet did not increase the replication of vaccinia in normal tissues. The combination of TSA and VV increased survival of mice harbouring human HCT116 colon tumour xenografts as compared to mice treated with either agent alone. We conclude that TSA can selectively and effectively enhance the replication and spread of oncolytic vaccinia virus in cancer cells. © 2010 MacTavish et al

Seroprevalence of Zika virus in wild African green monkeys and baboons

ABSTRACT Zika virus (ZIKV) has recently spread through the Americas and has been associated with a range of health effects, including birth defects in children born to women infected during pregnancy. Although the natural reservoir of ZIKV remains poorly defined, the virus was first identified in a captive “sentinel” macaque monkey in Africa in 1947. However, the virus has not been reported in humans or nonhuman primates (NHPs) in Africa outside Gabon in over a decade. Here, we examine ZIKV infection in 239 wild baboons and African green monkeys from South Africa, the Gambia, Tanzania, and Zambia using combinations of unbiased deep sequencing, quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR), and an antibody capture assay that we optimized using serum collected from captive macaque monkeys exposed to ZIKV, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus. While we did not find evidence of active ZIKV infection in wild NHPs in Africa, we found variable ZIKV seropositivity of up to 16% in some of the NHP populations sampled. We anticipate that these results and the methodology described within will help in continued efforts to determine the prevalence, natural reservoir, and transmission dynamics of ZIKV in Africa and elsewhere. IMPORTANCE Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne virus originally discovered in a captive monkey living in the Zika Forest of Uganda, Africa, in 1947. Recently, an outbreak in South America has shown that ZIKV infection can cause myriad health effects, including birth defects in the children of women infected during pregnancy. Here, we sought to investigate ZIKV infection in wild African primates to better understand its emergence and spread, looking for evidence of active or prior infection. Our results suggest that up to 16% of some populations of nonhuman primate were, at some point, exposed to ZIKV. We anticipate that this study will be useful for future studies that examine the spread of infections from wild animals to humans in general and those studying ZIKV in primates in particular. Podcast: A podcast concerning this article is available

Uterine Leiomyosarcoma

Uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS) is a rare entity among malignant gynecologic tumors with a very unfavorable prognosis and the highest prevalence in the pre- and peri-menopause. Only early-stage tumors have an acceptable prognosis, provided the patient has been treated without injuring the uterus. uLMS is often diagnosed accidentally and the correct diagnosis ishampered by equivocal features similar to the far more frequent benign uterine fibroids. Surgery is the basis of therapy, and it should be done in order to remove the uterus intact. As vaginal, abdominal, and endoscopic surgery – possibly including morcellation – are the methods of choice for the treatment of uterine fibroids, pre-operatively undiagnosed leiomyosarcoma detected by pathologic examination will have a worsened prognosis. Systemic treatment and radiotherapy are of no proven value in the adjuvant setting. Thus, there is strong need for a reliable pre-operative risk score for leiomyosarcoma in order to justify diagnostic means beyond clinical routine and to choose the correct surgical pathway. The clinical problems in the diagnosis of leiomyosarcoma and treatment are exemplified by a case report of a 30-year-old childless patient. Diagnostic tools as well as treatment options in adjuvant and palliative situations are reviewed

Sortie-Based Aircraft Component Demand Rate to Predict Requirements

Purpose — Forecasting techniques improve supply chain resilience by ensuring that the correct parts are available when required. In addition, accurate forecasts conserve precious resources and money by avoiding new start contracts to produce unforeseen part requests, reducing labor intensive cannibalization actions and ensuring consistent transportation modality streams where changes incur cost. This study explores the effectiveness of the United States Air Force’s current flying hour-based demand forecast by comparing it with a sortie-based demand forecast to predict future spare part needs. Design/methodology/approach — This study employs a correlation analysis to show that demand for reparable parts on certain aircraft has a stronger correlation to the number of sorties flown than the number of flying hours. The effect of using the number of sorties flown instead of flying hours is analyzed by employing sorties in the United States Air Force (USAF)’s current reparable parts forecasting model. A comparative analysis on D200 forecasting error is conducted across F-16 and B-52 fleets. Findings — This study finds that the USAF could improve its reparable parts forecast, and subsequently part availability, by employing a sortie-based demand rate for particular aircraft such as the F-16. Additionally, our findings indicate that forecasts for reparable parts on aircraft with low sortie count flying profiles, such as the B-52 fleet, perform better modeling demand as a function of flying hours. Thus, evidence is provided that the Air Force should employ multiple forecasting techniques across its possessed, organically supported aircraft fleets. The improvement of the forecast and subsequent decrease in forecast error will be presented in the Results and Discussion section. Research limitations/implications — This study is limited by the data-collection environment, which is only reported on an annual basis and is limited to 14 years of historical data. Furthermore, some observations were not included because significant data entry errors resulted in unusable observations. Originality/value — There are few studies addressing the time measure of USAF reparable component failures. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies that analyze spare component demand as a function of sortie numbers and compare the results of forecasts made on a sortie-based demand signal to the current flying hour-based approach to spare parts forecasting. The sortie-based forecast is a novel methodology and is shown to outperform the current flying hour-based method for some aircraft fleets

Gasaustausch zwischen einem Helium enthaltenden Behälter und der Umgebung über ein nach unten abgehendes Rohr und dessen Relevanz für den HTR Modu

After a fracture of the fuel charge tube {$\varnothing$ = 65 mm) of a HTR-Modul-Reactor a rapid depressurization of the primary circuit occurs and thereafter a long-range gas exchange between primary circuit and containment takes place. Experiments related to the problem of gas exchange between a vessel and the environment via a vertically installed tube were carried out. For the calculation of the gas exchange rates a computer code was developed, which takes into account all mechanisms influencing the exchange rate in the experiment. The calculated values were in good agreement with the experimental results. The transformation of the results to a HTR-Modul shows that the gas exchange rate in the case of a charge tube fracture is only determined by gas expansion and contraction in the primary circuit. Therefore the amount of air entering the primary circuit is very small