At the Early Brazilian Republic, Bulhoes Carvalho legalizes the statistical activity and put it into the State’s order

Recreated in the early days of the Brazilian Republic (jan./1890) as a central agency, the General Directory of Statistics (DGE) faced difficulties in consolidating the Brazilian statistical activity. A new time only was achieved when José Luiz Sayão de Bulhões Carvalho (1866-1940), a medical doctor specialist in public health dedicated to demographic studies and researches, took its direction (in two times) for almost 17 years. His performance applied to facilitate the interaction of DGE with its similar agencies in the federation. He idealized agreements with provincial statistical agencies; imagined counsels (or committees) for making collective decisions; imagined a national statistical conference based on the experience he has accumulated in two conferences of the International Statistical Institute (ISI); applied attention to the formation of a statistical professional community; encouraged and sponsored the translation of books, among other measures. The Census of 1920, he had made, the only major census at the Early Brazilian Republic, was guided by friendly relations with the federal and provincial statistical organizations and with the society (Catholic Church, media, unions, clubs etc.). It was, we can say, a modern census, using processing machines, and concluded in a timely fashion. The printed volumes of results were illustrated by pictorial graphics, also used at the Pavilion of Statistics, called (by the press) the Pavilion of Precisely Science, which fixed the presence of DGE in the International Exhibit of the Brazilian Independence Centennial (1822-1922). With his experience, anticipated the basis of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), created in 1936 as the new Brazilian Statistical central agency (still working with growing success), that can be see, in sum, as a measure of his success in a long term vision

At the time of IBGE, the Brazilian statistical activity in three social-historical periods. The challenges of the present moment

Desde 1936, quando o IBGE começou a funcionar, a atividade estatística brasileira é dividida, neste texto, em três períodos, cada um deles sendo apresentado em suas características. E para guiar a análise sócio-histórica feita neste texto vale-se da noção de “atividade estatística”, apresentada numa equação simbólica com três termos. Entretanto, há outras noções (ou métodos) possíveis para se realizar esse tipo de análise sócio-histórica, e uma síntese deles é apresentada. Ao final o texto faz uma análise especial do tempo atual, sugerindo o imperativo de uma coordenação, tendo em vista que há três tipos de demandas estatísticas presentes no país.The Brazilian statistical activity at IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) time, according to a social-history approach, can be identified by three periods: around 1936 to around 1966, around 1966 to around 1996 and from that time on. Indeed, chronologies can be seductive, but it requires special care: considering as successive situations the ones which are many times simultaneous is a risky attitude. That is the case of the division here used and the explanation for the additional “around” before the years is in order to mitigate misunderstandings but it does not solve completely the problem as one mentioned time may come from a previous one. In other words, the chronological borders between periods tend to be nebulous.

Necrosis isquémica después de reducción cerrada en displasia del desarrollo de la cadera

Se presenta una revisión retrospectiva de 81 pacientes con 121 caderas con displasia del desarrollo tratados mediante reducción cerrada, miotomía de los aductores, tenotomía del psoas e inmovilización en una espica de yeso sin tracción previa a la reducción. Setenta y un pacientes del sexo femenino y 10 del masculino. El período de inmovilización fue en promedio de 3,6 meses. El seguimiento fue de 3 años mínimo y 20 años como máximo, con un promedio de 9,8 años. Los pacientes tratados fueron divididos en 2 grupos: grupo I, 93 caderas en pacientes de 7 a 18 meses de edad, y el grupo II, 28 caderas de pacientes de 19 meses a 3 años de edad. El patrón de lesión isquémica fue determinado de acuerdo con la clasificación de Bucholz y Ogden. Todas las radiografías fueron revisadas para establecer la presencia de deformidad de la cabeza femoral, displasia acetabular, subluxación, sobrecrecimiento del trocánter mayor y discrepancia en la longitud de las extremidades. En el grupo I se encontró afección en 40 caderas (43%) con cambios isquémicos moderados en 6 casos y leves en 9. De acuerdo con los criterios clínicos de Barret, 39 caderas tuvieron una evolución clínica excelente-buena y 1 caso regular. Los criterios radiológicos de Severin clasifican 37 caderas en los grupos I-II y 3 en el grupo III. En el grupo II, 23 caderas (82%) presentaron cambios isquémicos, leves en 5 casos, moderados en 4 y severos en 3. Con la clasificación de Barret, 19 caderas con resultados excelente-bueno y 4 con 1 resultado regular. Severin sitúa 21 caderas en los grupos l-II y 2 en el grupo IV. En ambos grupos se requirieron de procedimientos quirúrgicos adicionales. Los cambios isquémicos más severos estuvieron en relación con la edad del paciente.This is a 20 years retrospective review of 81 patients with 121 hips with developmental dysplasia of the hip treated by closed reduction, adductor myotomy and psoas tenotomy and immobilization in a spica cast, without prereduction traction. Divided in 2 groups, group 1: 93 hips from 7 to 18 months, and group II: 28 hips from 19 months to 3 years. The Bucholz-Ogden classification was used to determine the patterns of ischemic lesion and the final results were assessed according to Barret's clinical criteria and Severin's radiological rating. In group I (93 hips), 40 hips (43%) showed ischemic changes, mild (9 hips) to moderate (6 hips). The Barret clinical criteria showed 39 hips with excellent and good results and 1 hip fair. Severins radiological rating showed 37 hips in type l-II and 3 hips in type III. Group II (28 hips), 23 hips showed ischemic changes, mild in 5 hips, moderate 4 hips and severe in 3 hips. The Barret clinical criteria in the final assessment showed 19 hips with excellent-good results and 4 hips was fair. Severins radiological rating showed 21 hips in type I-II and 2 hips in type IV. Some of the patients needed additional surgical procedures. The ischemic changes were more severe as patients gets older

Design, Construction and Validation of a New Generation of Bioreactors for Tissue Engineering Applications.

132 p.The thesis reports on the design, fabrication and validation of a new generation of bioreactors for cell culture stimulation, in order to improve cell proliferation in advanced tissue engineering strategies. Bioreactors are developed to take advantage of responsive materials allowing to mimic cell microenvironments, resembling some of the most common physical stimuli within the human body. Some stimuli can be produced by polymer-based scaffolds such as magnetoelectric, which can work as mechanical and electrical actuators.Two types of bioreactors were developed: one for bone tissue engineering through magnetoelectric stimulation (through mechanical vibration and piezoelectricity) and another for muscle tissue engineering through mechanical stretching and controlled current impulses.This project encompasses several fields of engineering such as device engineering, design, mechanics and electronics, having also into account proper material selection and the final biomedical application

Real Time Stereo Cameras System Calibration Tool and Attitude and Pose Computation with Low Cost Cameras

The Engineering in autonomous systems has many strands. The area in which this work falls, the artificial vision, has become one of great interest in multiple contexts and focuses on robotics. This work seeks to address and overcome some real difficulties encountered when developing technologies with artificial vision systems which are, the calibration process and pose computation of robots in real-time. Initially, it aims to perform real-time camera intrinsic (3.2.1) and extrinsic (3.3) stereo camera systems calibration needed to the main goal of this work, the real-time pose (position and orientation) computation of an active coloured target with stereo vision systems. Designed to be intuitive, easy-to-use and able to run under real-time applications, this work was developed for use either with low-cost and easy-to-acquire or more complex and high resolution stereo vision systems in order to compute all the parameters inherent to this same system such as the intrinsic values of each one of the cameras and the extrinsic matrices computation between both cameras. More oriented towards the underwater environments, which are very dynamic and computationally more complex due to its particularities such as light reflections. The available calibration information, whether generated by this tool or loaded configurations from other tools allows, in a simplistic way, to proceed to the calibration of an environment colorspace and the detection parameters of a specific target with active visual markers (4.1.1), useful within unstructured environments. With a calibrated system and environment, it is possible to detect and compute, in real time, the pose of a target of interest. The combination of position and orientation or attitude is referred as the pose of an object. For performance analysis and quality of the information obtained, this tools are compared with others already existent.A engenharia de sistemas autónomos actua em diversas vertentes. Uma delas, a visão artificial, em que este trabalho assenta, tornou-se uma das de maior interesse em múltiplos contextos e focos na robótica. Assim, este trabalho procura abordar e superar algumas dificuldades encontradas aquando do desenvolvimento de tecnologias baseadas na visão artificial. Inicialmente, propõe-se a fornecer ferramentas para realizar as calibrações necessárias de intrínsecos (3.2.1) e extrínsecos (3.3) de sistemas de visão stereo em tempo real para atingir o objectivo principal, uma ferramenta de cálculo da posição e orientação de um alvo activo e colorido através de sistemas de visão stereo. Desenhadas para serem intuitivas, fáceis de utilizar e capazes de operar em tempo real, estas ferramentas foram desenvolvidas tendo em vista a sua integração quer com camaras de baixo custo e aquisição fácil como com camaras mais complexas e de maior resolução. Propõem-se a realizar a calibração dos parâmetros inerentes ao sistema de visão stereo como os intrínsecos de cada uma das camaras e as matrizes de extrínsecos que relacionam ambas as camaras. Este trabalho foi orientado para utilização em meio subaquático onde se presenciam ambientes com elevada dinâmica visual e maior complexidade computacional devido `a suas particularidades como reflexões de luz e má visibilidade. Com a informação de calibração disponível, quer gerada pelas ferramentas fornecidas, quer obtida a partir de outras, pode ser carregada para proceder a uma calibração simplista do espaço de cor e dos parâmetros de deteção de um alvo específico com marcadores ativos coloridos (4.1.1). Estes marcadores são ´uteis em ambientes não estruturados. Para análise da performance e qualidade da informação obtida, as ferramentas de calibração e cálculo de pose (posição e orientação), serão comparadas com outras já existentes

Modelling the Effects of Ageing Time of Starch on the Enzymatic Activity of Three Amylolytic Enzymes

The effect of increasing ageing time (t) of starch on the activity of three amylolytic enzymes (Termamyl, San Super, and BAN) was investigated. Although all the enzymatic reactions follow michaelian kinetics, vmax decreased significantly (P < 0.05) and KM increased (although not always significantly) with the increase in t. The conformational changes produced in the starch chains as a consequence of the ageing seemed to affect negatively the diffusivity of the starch to the active site of the enzymes and the release of the reaction products to the medium. A similar effect was observed when the enzymatic reactions were carried out with unaged starches supplemented with different concentrations of gelatine [G]. The inhibition in the amylolytic activities was best mathematically described by using three modified forms of the Michaelis-Menten model, which included a term to consider, respectively, the linear, exponential, and hyperbolic inhibitory effects of t and [G]

BILINGUALISM AND SIGNWRITING

Current methods for educating deaf children through English as a second language need to be examined in order to provide assistance in obtaining English literacy. Although special education settings and the development of language theories and development of bilingual education for the deaf still present an unsatisfactory picture, many adolescents and deaf adults have their reading comprehension skills at the 4th or 5th grade level. It is important that educators understand how the learning process of deaf children occurs to improve their strategies within classrooms. As a result, educators will be able to use appropriate teaching and encourage deaf students to be whole people, who know how to express themselves in sign language and SignWriting. This article provides a new perspective on the approach of bilingualism for the deaf in the insertion of SignWriting in the education of the deaf. This article addresses the collaboration of SignWriting theories and understanding the effectiveness of Sign Writing (SignWriting), providing the scientific findings that will justify the teaching of SignWriting for deaf children. This study examined literature reviews and theories on bilingualism: SignWriting. Our studies are based on Andrews (2012); Holt (1994); Musselman (2000); Hoffmeister, Philip, Costello, & Grass (1997); Prinz & Strong (1998); Singleton, Supalla, Litchfield, & Schley (1998)

Graphene as an electronic membrane

Experiments are finally revealing intricate facts about graphene which go beyond the ideal picture of relativistic Dirac fermions in pristine two dimensional (2D) space, two years after its first isolation. While observations of rippling added another dimension to the richness of the physics of graphene, scanning single electron transistor images displayed prevalent charge inhomogeneity. The importance of understanding these non-ideal aspects cannot be overstated both from the fundamental research interest since graphene is a unique arena for their interplay, and from the device applications interest since the quality control is a key to applications. We investigate the membrane aspect of graphene and its impact on the electronic properties. We show that curvature generates spatially varying electrochemical potential. Further we show that the charge inhomogeneity in turn stabilizes ripple formation.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figures. Updated version with new results about the re-hybridization of the electronic orbitals due to rippling of the graphene sheet. The re-hybridization adds the next-to-nearest neighbor hopping effect discussed in the previous version. New reference to recent STM experiments that give support to our theor

Scattering by flexural phonons in suspended graphene under back gate induced strain

We have studied electron scattering by out-of-plane (flexural) phonon modes in doped suspended graphene and its effect on charge transport. In the free-standing case (absence of strain) the flexural branch shows a quadratic dispersion relation, which becomes linear at long wavelength when the sample is under tension due to the rotation symmetry breaking. In the non-strained case, scattering by flexural phonons is the main limitation to electron mobility. This picture changes drastically when strains above $\bar{u}=10^{-4} n(10^{12}\,\text{cm}^{-2})$ are considered. Here we study in particular the case of back gate induced strain, and apply our theoretical findings to recent experiments in suspended graphene.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, published versio