Bilateral Breast Inflammatory Pseudotumor: A Clinical Report and Literature Review

Inflammatory pseudotumor (IP) is a benign lesion that can affect nearly any tissue in the body and which may be confused clinically and in imaging for malignancy. Despite the widespread performance of breast biopsy, the finding of inflammatory pseudotumor of the breast is exceedingly rare. Excision of the tumor is the treatment of choice, but there is a relatively high rate of recurrence. The aim of this report is to describe the clinical, imaging, and pathologic features in a case of bilateral breast IP

Resilience and Vulnerability of Public Transportation Fare Systems: The Case of the City of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Resilience is the ability of a system to adapt, persist, and transform as a reaction to threats, which may be external or internal to the system, while vulnerability is the state of being susceptible to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the inability to adapt. Based on a study of the threats that can affect urban mobility, we identified a gap regarding the analysis of the levels of resilience and vulnerability in the face of subsidy threats that can severely affect developing countries. This article measures the level of resilience and vulnerability due to the absence of public transport fare subsidies. For this purpose, we developed an approach based on fuzzy logic and applied it in 33 administrative regions (ARs) of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We obtained four matrices of the levels of vulnerability and resilience of each of the regions as an origin and destination. The results show that areas nearest to the downtown region and those with high-capacity transportation available (commuter train and/or subway, systems with many transfer points) are more resilient, while a high level of vulnerability is associated with low income, negative socioeconomic indicators, and the predominance of road transportation to reach jobs. The contribution of this paper is the method applied to analyse the levels of vulnerability and resilience of public transport, which includes a threat that can cause a rupture that impacts routines and job accessibility in a region

Comparative life cycle assessment of high-yield synthesis routes for carbon dots

Carbon dots (CDs) are carbon-based nanomaterials with advantageous luminescent properties, making them promising alternatives to other molecular and nanosized fluorophores. However, the development of CDs is impaired by the low synthesis yield of standard fabrication strategies, making high-yield strategies essential. To help future studies to focus on cleaner production strategies, we have employed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare and understand the environmental impacts of available routes for the high-yield synthesis of carbon dots. These routes were: (1) production of hydrochar, via hydrothermal treatment of carbon precursors, and its alkaline-peroxide treatment into high-yield carbon dots; (2) thermal treatment of carbon precursors mixed in a eutectic mixture of salts. Results show that the first synthesis route is associated with the lowest environmental impacts. This is attributed to the absence of the mixture of salts in the first synthesis route, which offsets its higher electricity consumption. Sensitivity analysis showed that the most critical parameter in the different synthetic strategies is the identity of the carbon precursor, with electricity being also relevant for the first synthesis route. Nevertheless, the use of some carbon precursors (as citric acid) with higher associated environmental impacts may be justified by their beneficial role in increasing the luminescent performance of carbon dots. Thus, the first synthesis route is indicated to be the most environmental benign and should be used as a basis in future studies aimed to the cleaner and high-yield production of carbon dots

Controle automático da umidade do solo com energia solar para pequenos produtores.

Esse trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar um protótipo autônomo de irrigação energizado por uma célula fotovoltaica de 5 W, baseado na plataforma Arduino (código e hardware aberto). O sistema consiste de um sensor de umidade do solo que ao atingir um dado sinal elétrico aciona um dispositivo solenoide de liberação do fluxo de água em uma rede de irrigação. O sistema tem custo aproximado de R$240, é de fácil manipulação e manutenção, e funciona de maneira autônoma durante o dia quando há energia solar disponível. O emprego do sistema pode aumentar a produtividade de pequenos produtores pela redução do estresse em períodos de seca

Desenvolvimento de um sistema de monitoramento remoto de umidade do solo.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar o protótipo de um sistema autônomo de monitoramento de umidade do solo. O sistema consiste de três sensores de umidade de solo conectados a um microcontrolador Arduino, alimentado por uma bateria carregada por uma célula fotovoltaica. O propósito desse sistema é realizar a transmissão por módulo Xbee® de sinal analógico referente ao teor de umidade do solo. O sinal transmitido é captado por outro módulo Xbee® ligado a um programa servidor capaz de armazenar continuamente as informações captadas

Geo-environmental mapping using physiographic analysis: constraints on the evaluation of land instability and groundwater pollution hazards in the Metropolitan District of Campinas, Brazil

Geo-environmental terrain assessments and territorial zoning are useful tools for the formulation and implementation of environmental management instruments (including policy-making, planning, and enforcement of statutory regulations). They usually involve a set of procedures and techniques for delimitation, characterisation and classification of terrain units. However, terrain assessments and zoning exercises are often costly and time-consuming, particularly when encompassing large areas, which in many cases prevent local agencies in developing countries from properly benefiting from such assessments. In the present paper, a low-cost technique based on the analysis of texture of satellite imagery was used for delimitation of terrain units. The delimited units were further analysed in two test areas situated in Southeast Brazil to provide estimates of land instability and the vulnerability of groundwater to pollution hazards. The implementation incorporated procedures for inferring the influences and potential implications of tectonic fractures and other discontinuities on ground behaviour and local groundwater flow. Terrain attributes such as degree of fracturing, bedrock lithology and weathered materials were explored as indicators of ground properties. The paper also discusses constraints on- and limitations of- the approaches taken

Revisiting the Absorption Spectra of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons over Porto (Portugal) by TD-DFT Calculations

Brown carbon is a type of strong light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosol associated with radiative forcing. Nevertheless, the difficulty in correlating the chemical composition of brown carbon with its light absorption properties impairs the proper elucidation of its role in radiative forcing. Here, we have used a time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT)-based procedure to revisit the real-world absorption spectra of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) over the city of Porto, in Portugal, while correcting the spectra for their quantity in PM10 particulate matter. Our aim is to, by comparing these new results with those obtained previously regarding PM2.5 data, evaluate the role of different groupings of particulate matter in the light absorption of brown carbon. The results indicate that irrespective of the absorption spectra corresponding to their PM10 or PM2.5 data, the studied PAHs should contribute to radiative forcing by light absorption at UVA and (sub)visible wavelengths. However, the identity of the individual PAH species that contribute the most for the considered wavelengths can be quite different. Thus, different groupings of particulate matter appear to provide distinct contributions to light absorption and radiative forcing over the same location, even when considering the same class of molecular compounds.</jats:p