Behavioral alarm treatment for nocturnal enuresis

PURPOSES: To investigate the efficacy of alarm treatment in a sample of Brazilian children and adolescents with nocturnal enuresis and relate treatment success to age and type of clinical support. MATERIALS AND METHODS: During 32 weeks, 84 children and adolescents received alarm treatment together with weekly psychological support sessions for individual families or groups of 5 to 10 families. RESULTS: 71% of the participants achieved success, defined as 14 consecutive dry nights. The result was similar for children and adolescents and for individual or group support. The time until success was shorter for participants missing fewer support sessions. CONCLUSIONS: Alarm treatment was effective for the present sample, regardless of age or type of support. Missing a higher number of support sessions, which may reflect low motivation for treatment, increased the risk of failure.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológic

Pacto federativo e gestão de águas

Resultant from a constitutional provision, the National Water Resources Management System (Singreh), regulated by Law n.9.433 of 1997, considers the federative nature of Brazil. Besides that, the legislation brings new decentralization paradigms and use of economic tools for public management and participation in the decision-making process. The present essay, besides approaching issues of availability and demand of water resources in all 12 hydrographic regions of the country and the institutional design and functioning of Singreh in terms of legal and institutional arrangements, outlines the challenges of the water management in each hydrographic basin in the context of the federation. It also deals with the implementation process of technical and institutional tools of water resources in Paraíba do Sul River Basin - the first basin to implement water charges and operate a Water Agency in Brazil.Resultado de um dispositivo constitucional, o Sistema Nacional de Gerenciamento de Recursos Hídricos (Singreh), regulamentado pela Lei n.9.433 de 1997, considera a natureza federativa do país. Além disso, a legislação traz novos paradigmas de descentralização, utilização de instrumentos econômicos para a gestão e participação pública no processo de tomada de decisão. O presente artigo, portanto, além de tratar das disponibilidades e demandas de recursos hídricos nas 12 regiões hidrográficas e abordar o desenho institucional e o funcionamento do Singreh em termos dos arranjos legais e institucionais, apresenta, em linhas gerais, os desafios da gestão das águas por bacia hidrográfica no contexto federativo, e trata do processo de implementação dos instrumentos técnicos e institucionais de recursos hídricos na Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio Paraíba do Sul, primeira bacia brasileira a implantar a cobrança pelo uso da água e a operacionalizar uma Agência de Água

Accretion Onto the Supermassive Black Hole in the High-redshift Radio-loud AGN 0957+561

We present the results of our X-ray, UV and optical monitoring campaign of the first gravitationally lensed AGN from late 2009 to mid 2010. The trailing (B) image of the AGN 0957+561 shows the intrinsic continuum variations that were predicted in advance based on observations of the leading (A) image in the gr optical bands. This multiwavelength variability of the B image allows us to carry out a reverberation mapping analysis in the radio-loud AGN 0957+561 at redshift z = 1.41. We find that the U-band and r-band light curves are highly correlated with the g-band record, leading and trailing it by 3 +/- 1 days (U band) and 4 +/- 1 days (r band). These 1-sigma measurements are consistent with a scenario in which flares originated in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole are thermally reprocessed in a standard accretion disk at about 10-20 Schwarzschild radii from the central dark object. We also report that the light curve for the X-ray emission with power-law spectrum is delayed with respect to those in the Ugr bands by about 32 days. Hence, the central driving source can not be a standard corona emitting the observed power-law X-rays. This result is also supported by X-ray reprocessing simulations and the absence of X-ray reflection features in the spectrum of 0957+561. We plausibly interpret the lack of reflection and the 32-day delay as evidence for a power-law X-ray source in the base of the jet at a typical height of about 200 Schwarzschild radii. A central EUV source would drive the variability of 0957+561.Comment: 21 pages, 7 text pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, accepted by The Astrophysical Journa

Video Processing Techniques for Traffic Information Acquisition Using Uncontrolled Video Streams

This paper reports on the first steps taken in search of a solution that uses public video streams available on the Internet to address the increasing need for monitoring transportation networks with the intent of returning added value to the community, either by allowing a better understanding of the network and its needs or by feeding applications with real-time information for various purposes, such as simulation, decision-making support and updated route guidance. After the introduction of the field, we present our findings from a survey that briefly describes several works with related studies and explain the algorithms that can be adopted to get relevant information from video streams. This is followed by an analysis of the issues that may arise and the best ways to address them. Next it reports on the results achieved so far, draws some conclusions on what has been done and suggests the next steps of our research

Video Processing Techniques for Traffic Information Acquisition Using Uncontrolled Video Streams

This paper reports on the first steps taken in search of a solution that uses public video streams available on the Internet to address the increasing need for monitoring transportation networks with the intent of returning added value to the community, either by allowing a better understanding of the network and its needs or by feeding applications with real-time information for various purposes, such as simulation, decision-making support and updated route guidance. After the introduction of the field, we present our findings from a survey that briefly describes several works with related studies and explain the algorithms that can be adopted to get relevant information from video streams. This is followed by an analysis of the issues that may arise and the best ways to address them. Next it reports on the results achieved so far, draws some conclusions on what has been done and suggests the next steps of our research