LMC self lensing for OGLE-II microlensing observations

In the framework of microlensing searches towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), we discuss the results presented by the OGLE collaboration for their OGLE-II campaign \citep{lukas09}. We evaluate the optical depth, the duration and the expected rate of events for the different possible lens populations: both luminous, dominated by the LMC self lensing, and "dark", the would be compact halo objects (MACHOs) belonging to either the Galactic or to the LMC halo. The OGLE-II observational results, 2 microlensing candidate events located in the LMC bar region with duration of 24.2 and 57.2 days, compare well with the expected signal from the luminous lens populations: $n_\mathrm{exp}=1.5$, with typical duration, for LMC self lensing, of about 50 days. Because of the small statistics at disposal, however, the conclusions that can be drawn as for the halo mass fraction, $f$, in form of compact halo objects are not too severe. By means of a likelihood analysis we find an \emph{upper} limit for $f$, at 95% confidence level, of about 15% in the mass range $(10^{-2}-10^{-1}) \mathrm{M}_\odot$ and 26% for $0.5 \mathrm{M}_\odot$.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

Nutrition facts of infant formulas sold in São Paulo state: assessment of fat and fatty acid contents

OBJETIVO: Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar a informação nutricional fornecida pelos fabricantes de fórmulas infantis, comparando-as quanto aos teores obtidos na análise, ao conteúdo de lipídeos, ácidos graxos saturados, ácidos graxos trans, ácido linoleico, ácido alfa-linolênico, ácido araquidônico e ácido docosahexaenoico. MÉTODOS: Foram analisadas 14 amostras de seis marcas diferentes de fórmulas infantis comercializadas no Estado de São Paulo. A extração e a quantificação dos lipídeos foram realizadas pelo método oficial (Roese Gottlieb), e a quantificação dos ácidos graxos, pela cromatografia em fase gasosa pelo método de adição de padrão interno. As análises foram realizadas em triplicata. RESULTADOS: De acordo com os resultados, todas as amostras estavam em conformidade com a rotulagem para gordura total, uma estava em desacordo para ácidos graxos saturados, seis para ácidos graxos trans, quatro para ácido linoleico, dez para ácido alfa-linolênico, dois para ácido araquidônico e três para o ácido docosahexaenoico. As fórmulas infantis para lactentes de zero a seis meses foram as que revelaram as maiores diferenças em relação à informação nutricional fornecida pelo fabricante. CONCLUSÃO: Os resultados obtidos apontam a necessidade de um contínuo monitoramento desses produtos por meio de programas de vigilância sanitária, uma vez que a inadequação dos nutrientes da fração lipídica e outros pode afetar de maneira significativa o desenvolvimento infantil.OBJECTIVE: This study determined the contents of fats, saturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, linoleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid, arachidonic acid and docosahexaenoic acid in infant formulas and compared them with the nutrition facts reported on the respective packaging. METHODS: Fourteen samples of six different infant formula brands sold in the state of São Paulo were analyzed. The extraction and quantification of fats were done by the official method (Roese Gottlieb) and the quantification of fatty acids by gas chromatography using an internal standard. All analyses were repeated three times. RESULTS: The results showed that the nutrition facts printed on the packaging regarding total fats were correct for all samples, one was incorrect for saturated fatty acids, six were incorrect for trans fatty acids, four were incorrect for linoleic acid, ten were incorrect for alpha-linolenic acid, two were incorrect for arachidonic acid and three were incorrect for docosahexaenoic acid. The formulas that presented the greatest differences between nutrition facts and actual contents were those for infants aged zero to six months. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that sanitary surveillance programs need to constantly monitor these products since the incorrect amount of nutrients may significantly affect the child's development

"Cloud computation" na forma de serviços WEB para um banco de dados federativo STING_RDB.

O STING é um produto - plataforma com interface para fácil análise de estruturas macromoleculares (proteicas e de DNA) baseado em um conjunto de pre-calculados descritores de estrutura 3-dimensional destas moléculas. Os descritores encontram se em um banco relacional de dados, mantido automaticamente, atualizado em periodos regulares, acompanhando o crescimento de informações disponibilizadas publicamente pelos principais provedores e repositores mundiais, tais como: PDB, UNIPROT, HSSP, PROSITE, PROTHERM etc. Nossa proposta visa reformulação da maneira do trabalho e da desenvolvimento das principais ferramentas oferrecidas para a comunidade cientifica: queremos fazer o STING um "(bio)logic programable layer" em cima da "processing network layer" (composta por CENABIDs, e outros cluster e núcleos de alto processamento). A maior demanda no campo da Bioinformática é por SOFTWARE de qualidade e não como muitos acreditam, por numero elevado de CPUs. As condições de nosso trabalho permitem montar um sistema genuinamente distribuído, fazendo uso mais racional dos hardwares já adquiridos. Isso possibilitara também que outros interessantes pacotes (a maioria ainda protótipos de uma ideia promissora) de bioinformática, desenvolvidos nos mais diversos rincões de pesquisas possam ser tirados do seu ostracismo e trazidos para a integração. Logo, a racionalização acabara abrangendo também os aplicativos. O STING pode ser esse componente aglutinador, possivelmente tornando-se um padrão de componentização: uma verdadeira plataforma para desenvolvimento de aplicações distribuída em bioinformática. O STING se tornara uma API (Application Programming Interface) capaz de manipular todos os parâmetros presentes no seu RDB. As WEB-APIs dos diversos centros brasileiros e dos outros paises, estarão "virtualmente" integradas nos middlewares, e diferentes aplicações poderão ser montadas por diferentes usuários conforme os diferentes interesses

Análise de dados longitudinais através de modelos marginais

Longitudinal studies are those in which the same (or different) variables are measured for the same individuals in at least two different points of time, thus allows to study the change in behavior, for example, for the same individual or variations between individuals over time, consisting of sources of data for studies on demographic changes and socio- economic, epidemiological and environmental studies, among others. The purpose of this monograph is to present a methodology often used for the analysis of longitudinal data, the marginal models, through an application to data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). In addition to the marginal model fitting procedures, we present a brief exploratory analysis of longitudinal data.Pesquisas longitudinais são aquelas em que as mesmas (ou diferentes) variáveis são medidas para os mesmos indivíduos em, pelo menos, dois pontos distintos do tempo, permitindo assim estudar a mudança de comportamento, por exemplo, de um mesmo indivíduo ou variações entre indivíduos ao longo do tempo, consistindo também em fontes de dados para estudos sobre mudanças demográficas e socioeconômicas, estudos epidemiológicos e ambientais, entre outros. O objetivo da presente monografia é apresentar uma metodologia muito utilizada para a análise de dados longitudinais, os modelos marginais, a partir de uma aplicação aos dados provenientes de uma pesquisa britânica do tipo painel de base domiciliar, a British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Além do ajuste de modelos marginais, apresentaremos uma breve análise exploratória dos dados longitudinais

MEASURING PUBLIC EXPENSES WITH WORKFORCE IN FIGHTING FOREST FIRE

Measuring public expenses with workforce in fighting forest fire. The frequency of forest fires and the lack of investment in public institutions arising from the current Brazilian economic crisis, emerges the difficulty of competent institutions in managing resources due to the increasing number of fires, mainly the labor. The objective of this work was to measure the expenses with labor in the combats against forest fires in Public Conservation Units by comparing it with the labor with prevention. This exploratory, documentary and ex post facto study was prepared based on documents and reports from public institutions involved in fighting a major fire in a Biological Reserve in the State of Espírito Santo. The data were analyzed according to the participating institutions, number of participants, positions, value of remunerations and days worked. To measure the average daily expenditure on different remunerations, an accounting model was developed, using the values of the remunerations for the year in which the fire occurred. In the end, it could be concluded that, for every 124.3 hectares burned, 110 individuals worked per day, the majority were military personnel at the beginning of their careers and that the expenditure on public labor employed in combat, both in quantity and remuneration, was much higher than the labor with the temporary hiring of firefighters.

Linking vegetation and soil functions during secondary forest succession in the Atlantic forest

Secondary forest succession can be an effective and low-cost strategy to increase forest cover and the associated biodiversity and soil functions. However, little is known about how soil functions develop during succession, and how vegetation attributes influence soil functions, especially in highly biodiverse and fragmented landscapes in the tropics. Here we assessed a wide range of indicators of taxonomic (e.g. number of tree species), structural (e.g. basal area, canopy openness) and functional diversity (e.g. community weighted means of functional traits) of tree species, as well as indicators for soil functions related to soil organic matter accumulation, nutrient cycling and soil cover in secondary forest patches ranging from 5 to 80 years. Two recently abandoned agricultural fields were included as the starting point of forest succession and two primary forest patches served as references for the end point of forest succession. Four ecological hypotheses, centred around the role of functional diversity, structural diversity and biomass, were tested to explore mechanisms in which forest vegetation may influence soil functions. Most measures of structural, taxonomic and functional diversity converged to values found in primary forests after 25–50 years of succession, whereas functional composition changed from acquisitive to conservative species. Soil carbon and nutrient cycling showed a quick recovery to the levels of primary forests after 15 years of succession. Although soil cover also increased during succession, levels of primary forests were not reached within 80 years. Variation in tree height and trait dominance were identified as aboveground drivers of carbon and nutrient cycling, while aboveground biomass was the main driver of litter accumulation, and the associated soil cover and water retention. Our results indicate that secondary forest succession can lead to a relative fast recovery of nutrient and carbon cycling functions, but not of soil cover. Our findings highlight the essential role of secondary forests in providing multiple ecosystem services. These results can be used to inform management and reforestation programmes targeted at strengthening soil functions, such as soil cover, nutrient and carbon cycling.Previo

Comparação da resposta da percepção subjetiva do esforço e da carga total levantada nos exercícios resistidos em plataforma estável e instável

This study aimed to compare the perceived subjective exertion (PSE) and total load lifted in resistance exercises performed on stable platforms (SP) and unstable platforms (UP). Participants were 20 men (24.6 ± 3.4 years, 179 ± 0.1 cm, 80.6 ± 9.1 kg and 11.8 ± 3.4% fat). Each subject performed a 15 maximum repetition test in half squat exercises (soil and balance discs), pronated barbell row (soil and bosu) and biceps curl (soil and balance discs) in both conditions. PSE was measured using the OMNI-RES scale and the load lifted value (kg). To verify the normality of data, the Shapiro-Wilk test was used. Possible differences related to loads and PSE on the platforms were performed by the paired t test. Significance level of p <0.05 was adopted. No significant differences between PSE values on SP and UP were respectively observed in the half squat (8.2 and 8.5 / p = 0.8), pronated barbell row (8.4 and 8.4 / p = 0.7) and biceps curl (8.6 and 8.7 / p = 1.0). Higher load values on SP and UP were respectively found in half squat (83.9kg and 70.3kg / p <0.001) and pronated barbell row exercises (53.2kg and 48.6kg / p = 0.01) on SP. However, biceps curl showed dissimilar behavior (48.2kg and 47.4kg / p = 0.5). It was concluded that UP does not promote differences in PSE responses even working with smaller load or similar load.Objetivou-se comparar a percepção subjetiva do esforço (PSE) e a carga total levantada nos exercícios resistidos em plataformas estáveis (PE) e plataformas instáveis (PI). Participaram do estudo 20 homens (24,6 ± 3,4 anos, 179 ± 0,1 cm, 80,6 ± 9,1 Kg e 11,8 ± 3,4 % de gordura). Cada voluntário realizou um teste de 15 repetições máximas nos exercícios meio agachamento (solo e discos de equilíbrio), remada curvada pronada (solo e bosu) e rosca bíceps (solo e discos de equilíbrio) em ambas as condições. Foram medidas a PSE através da escala de OMNI-RES e o valor da carga levantada (kg). Para verificar a normalidade dos dados, utilizou-se o teste Shapiro-Wilk. As possíveis diferenças relacionadas às cargas e à PSE nas plataformas foram realizadas pelo teste t pareado. Adotou-se um nível de significância de p<0,05. Não foram encontradas diferenças significativas entre os valores da PSE em PE e PI respectivamente, no meio agachamento (8,2 e 8,5 / p=0,8), remada curvada pronada (8,4 e 8,4 / p=0,7) e rosca bíceps (8,6 e 8,7 / p=1,0). Foram encontrados maiores valores de carga em PE e PI respectivamente, nos exercícios de meio agachamento (83,9kg e 70,3kg / p<0,001) e remada curvada pronada (53,2kg e 48,6kg / p=0,01) na PE. Em contrapartida, para a rosca bíceps não ocorreu o mesmo (48,2kg e 47,4kg / p=0,5). É possível concluir que as PI não promovem diferenças nas respostas da PSE mesmo sendo trabalhadas com uma menor carga ou com uma carga semelhante

No Conclusive Evidence for Transits of Proxima b in MOST photometry

The analysis of Proxima Centauri's radial velocities recently led Anglada-Escud\'e et al. (2016) to claim the presence of a low mass planet orbiting the Sun's nearest star once every 11.2 days. Although the a-priori probability that Proxima b transits its parent star is just 1.5%, the potential impact of such a discovery would be considerable. Independent of recent radial velocity efforts, we observed Proxima Centauri for 12.5 days in 2014 and 31 days in 2015 with the MOST space telescope. We report here that we cannot make a compelling case that Proxima b transits in our precise photometric time series. Imposing an informative prior on the period and phase, we do detect a candidate signal with the expected depth. However, perturbing the phase prior across 100 evenly spaced intervals reveals one strong false-positive and one weaker instance. We estimate a false-positive rate of at least a few percent and a much higher false-negative rate of 20-40%, likely caused by the very high flare rate of Proxima Centauri. Comparing our candidate signal to HATSouth ground-based photometry reveals that the signal is somewhat, but not conclusively, disfavored (1-2 sigmas) leading us to argue that the signal is most likely spurious. We expect that infrared photometric follow-up could more conclusively test the existence of this candidate signal, owing to the suppression of flare activity and the impressive infrared brightness of the parent star.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. Posterior samples, MOST photometry and HATSouth photometry are all available at https://github.com/CoolWorlds/Proxim

Tourism teaching through cinema

O presente artigo é resultado do Projeto de Extensão Cinema e Educação, desenvolvido na Universidade Estadual do Paraná - UNESPAR – Campus Apucarana (FECEA), com parceria do Centro de Estudos Aplicados ao Turismo da UNESPAR campus Apucarana (CEETUR). Na região atendida pelo projeto em específico não se teve conhecimento de atividades semelhantes, fato este que fez com que houvesse muitos interessados em participar. No projeto se buscou atuar na prática analisando os benefícios do uso do cinema para a prática educativa. O presente artigo objetivou analisar esta relação especificamente para o curso de Turismo, verificando como esta ferramenta estava sendo utilizada pelos professores, visando assim melhor aproveitamento desta arte na área. Quanto a metodologia do estudo em questão trabalhou-se com encontros quinzenais durante os meses de maio e junho do ano de 2016. Os filmes foram selecionados considerando suas temáticas unindo conteúdos a serem trabalhados e discutidos, relacionando-os com as áreas envolvidas no curso. Os filmes apresentados foram: Diários de Motocicleta (2004); Falando Grego (2009); Iracema - uma transa Amazônica (1975) e Comer, Rezar e Amar (2010). Após cada exibição foram feitas discussões com um mediador e os participantes e aplicado um questionário avaliativo. Concluiu-se que muitas vezes o filme ainda estava sendo usado como motivação para introduzir determinados conteúdos, porém constatando-se haver alguns professores que relataram as experiências associando educação e cinema argumentando ser um instrumento interessante tornando as aulas muito mais produtivas e dinâmicas, ampliando a capacidade de reflexão dos alunos, despertando o senso crítico da realidade.The present paper is a result of an Education and Cinema Extension Project, developed at UNESPAR (Paraná State University) – Apucarana Campus (FECEA), in partnership with Tourism Applied Studies Center (CEETUR) of the same university. In the attended region there aren’t any records of similar activities, and because of that the project had plenty of enrolled interested people. In this project it has been aimed to analyze the benefits of cinema to the educative practice. Then this paper goal was to analyze this relation specifically for Tourism Course purposes and verify how this tool was being used by professors, in order to have a better exploitation of such art in this area. The methodology used was biweekly meetings during May and June of 2016. The movies were organized by theme and subjects to be discussed, relating them to topics and areas relevant to the course. The exhibited movies were: Diários de Che Guevara (2004), My Life in Ruins (2009), Iracema (1975) and Eat Pray Love (2010). After each exhibition a mediator proposed some discussions about the movie and it was applied an assessment form to each participant. It could be concluded that many times a movie was still being used as a motivation to introduce certain topics, but it was verified that some professors reported experiences connecting education and cinema, by claiming it is an interesting tool that makes the classes more productive and dynamic, expanding students’ reflection capacity and increasing their argumentative sense on reality

BlueHealth: a study programme protocol for mapping and quantifying the potential benefits to public health and well-being from Europe's blue spaces

This is the final version of the article. Available from BMJ Publishing Group via the DOI in this record.INTRODUCTION: Proximity and access to water have long been central to human culture and accordingly deliver countless societal benefits. Over 200 million people live on Europe's coastline, and aquatic environments are the top recreational destination in the region. In terms of public health, interactions with 'blue space' (eg, coasts, rivers, lakes) are often considered solely in terms of risk (eg, drowning, microbial pollution). Exposure to blue space can, however, promote health and well-being and prevent disease, although underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. AIMS AND METHODS: The BlueHealth project aims to understand the relationships between exposure to blue space and health and well-being, to map and quantify the public health impacts of changes to both natural blue spaces and associated urban infrastructure in Europe, and to provide evidence-based information to policymakers on how to maximise health benefits associated with interventions in and around aquatic environments. To achieve these aims, an evidence base will be created through systematic reviews, analyses of secondary data sets and analyses of new data collected through a bespoke international survey and a wide range of community-level interventions. We will also explore how to deliver the benefits associated with blue spaces to those without direct access through the use of virtual reality. Scenarios will be developed that allow the evaluation of health impacts in plausible future societal contexts and changing environments. BlueHealth will develop key inputs into policymaking and land/water-use planning towards more salutogenic and sustainable uses of blue space, particularly in urban areas. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Throughout the BlueHealth project, ethics review and approval are obtained for all relevant aspects of the study by the local ethics committees prior to any work being initiated and an ethics expert has been appointed to the project advisory board. So far, ethical approval has been obtained for the BlueHealth International Survey and for community-level interventions taking place in Spain, Italy and the UK. Engagement of stakeholders, including the public, involves citizens in many aspects of the project. Results of all individual studies within the BlueHealth project will be published with open access. After full anonymisation and application of any measures necessary to prevent disclosure, data generated in the project will be deposited into open data repositories of the partner institutions, in line with a formal data management plan. Other knowledge and tools developed in the project will be made available via the project website (www.bluehealth2020.eu). Project results will ultimately provide key inputs to planning and policy relating to blue space, further stimulating the integration of environmental and health considerations into decision-making, such that blue infrastructure is developed across Europe with both public health and the environment in mind.This work was supported by funding received from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 666773