Public policies and food security and family farming networks: contributions to the construction of effectiveness indicators.

This work presents a methodology for investigating the performance of public politics regarding food security networks formed in Brazilian municipalities aimed at increasing income and employment in familiar farming. These programs need to further develop the methodologies used for studying their efficiency so that they can reach a new stage in the improvement and use of management tools thereby achieving beteer results of social inclusion and/or food security. This paper constitutes a first effort to bring together indicators for the evaluation of the efficiency of public politicies

On the relation between the propagators of dual theories

In this paper, we show that the propagator of the dual of a general Proca-like theory, derived from the gauging iterative Noether Dualization Method, can be written by means of a simple relation between known propagators. This result is also a demonstration that the Lagrangian obtained by dualization describes the same physical particles as the ones present in the original theory at the expense of introducing new non-physical (ghosts) excitations.Comment: latex, 4 page

String Entanglement and D-branes as Pure States

We study the entanglement of closed strings degrees of freedom in order to investigate the microscopic structure and statistics of objects as D-branes. By considering the macroscopic pure state (MPS) limit, whenever the entanglement entropy goes to zero (in such a way that the macroscopic properties of the state are preserved), we show that boundary states may be recovered in this limit and, furthermore, the description through closed string (perturbative) degrees of freedom collapses. We also show how the thermal properties of branes and closed strings could be described by this model, and it requires that dissipative effects be taken into account. Extensions of the MPS analysis to more general systems at finite temperature are finally emphasized.Comment: 14 pages. Minor improvements. Published in Phys. Rev.

Myeloid derived suppressor cells in multiple myeloma: Preclinical research and translational opportunities

Immunosuppressive cells have been reported to play an important role in tumor progression mainly because of their capability to promote immuneescape, angiogenesis and metastasis. Among them, myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) have been recently identified as immature myeloid cells, induced by tumor-associated inflammation, able to impair both innate and adaptive immunity. While murine MDSCs are usually identified by the expression of CD11b and Gr-1, human MDSCs represent a more heterogeneous population characterized by the expression of CD33 and CD11b, low or no HLA-DR and variable CD14 and CD15. In particular, the last two may alternatively identify monocyte-like or granulocyte-like MDSC subsets with different immunosuppressive properties. Recently, a substantial increase of MDSCs has been found in peripheral blood and bone marrow (BM) of multiple myeloma (MM) patients with a role in disease progression and/or drug resistance. Preclinical models recapitulating the complexity of the MM-related BM microenvironment (BMM) are major tools for the study of the interactions between MM cells and cells of the BMM (including MDSCs) and for the development of new agents targeting MM-associated immune suppressive cells. This review will focus on current strategies for human MDSCs generation and investigation of their immunosuppressive function in vitro and in vivo, taking into account the relevant relationship occurring within the MM-BMM. We will then provide trends in MDSC-associated research and suggest potential application for the treatment of MM

Analytical Modeling of a New Compliant Microsystem for Atherectomy Operations

This work offers a new alternative tool for atherectomy operations, with the purpose of minimizing the risks for the patients and maximizing the number of clinical cases for which the system can be used, thanks to the possibility of scaling its size down to lumen reduced to a few tenths of mm. The development of this microsystem has presented a certain theoretical work during the kinematic synthesis and the design stages. In the first stage a new multi-loop mechanism with a Stephenson’s kinematic chain (KC) was found and then adopted as the so-called pseudo-rigid body mechanism (PRBM). Analytical modeling was necessary to verify the synthesis requirements. In the second stage, the joint replacement method was applied to the PRBM to obtain a corresponding and equivalent compliant mechanism with lumped compliance. The latter presents two loops and six elastic joints and so the evaluation of the microsystem mechanical advantage (MA) had to be calculated by taking into account the accumulation of elastic energy in the elastic joints. Hence, a new closed form expression of the microsystem MA was found with a method that presents some new aspects in the approach. The results obtained with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) were compared to those obtained with the analytical model. Finally, it is worth noting that a microsystem prototype can be fabricated by using MEMS Technology classical methods, while the microsystem packaging could be a further development for the present investigation

Recyclability of a bio-based biocomposite under different reprocessing conditions

The present paper studies the effect of reprocessing, on both dry and wet reprocessing conditions, on the rheological and mechanical properties of a biocomposite made of a bio-based, biodegradable polymer with 40 wt% wood flour. The results show that the viscosity of the matrix decreases as the number of extrusions increases, with the greatest reduction for samples processed under wet conditions. The same behavior was observed for the biocomposite, but since the viscosity of the biocomposite is much higher than that of the matrix, this causes a greater reduction of molecular weight. Mechanical results show that properties such as tensile strength and elongation decrease as the number of extrusions increases for the matrix. In terms of maximum variations, the tensile strength experiences a decrease of approximately 18%, while the elongation at break shows a more significant reduction of about 40%. Conversely, the biocomposite shows an increase in tensile strength (about 30%) and elongation at break (about 90%) after the first extrusion and then a slight decrease, but with values of tensile strength and elongation higher than those of the virgin biocomposite