Avaliação termográfica de instalações de refrigeração

Numa sociedade em que a utilização racional de energia constitui cada vez mais uma prioridade, é pertinente a avaliação do desempenho energético dos equipamentos que actualmente se encontram em funcionamento nas diferentes instalações industriais e agro-industriais. Em particular, no distrito de Castelo Branco existem várias empresas que utilizam o “Frio” como parte do seu processo produtivo ou como método de conservação de produtos e que contribuem para o epíteto “Castelo Branco, Capital do Frio”. No presente estudo efectua-se um diagnóstico energético das câmaras frigoríficas com recurso à Termografia por Infravermelhos (TIV)

Metais pesados em agregados de solo submetido à aplicação sucessiva de lodo de esgoto.

RESUMO: A aplicação de lodo no solo é uma importante alternativa de reciclagem desse tipo de resíduo, de forma a manter os níveis de fertilidade do solo e promover a produtividade competitiva das culturas. No entanto , a presença de metais pesados pode limitar seu uso , sendo que o presente trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar os teores totais de alguns metais pesados e sua distribuição em classes de agregado em função da aplicação sucessiva de lodo de esgoto num solo agrícola . O estudo foi realizado no Campo Experimental da Embrapa Meio Ambiente - Jaguariúna (SP) e foram analisados 3 tratamentos: controle, adubação mineral e 1N (10 t ha - 1 ano - 1 de lodo em base seca ), na profundidade 0 -5 cm. O solo coletado foi passado empeneira de 9 ,5 2 mm de abertura e fracionado em agregados com dimensões: entre 9,52 - 4,00, entre 4,00 - 2,00mm, entre 2,00 - 0,25mm, entre 0,25 - 0,053mm, e menor que 0,053mm. Os teores totais de metais pesados do solo intacto e das classes de agregado foram quantificados por ICP-OES após extração seguindo procedimento da USEPA 3051. Não houve diferença significativa dos tratamentos na distribuição dos agregados do solo por classe de diâmetro. O lodo de esgoto elevou os teores de Cu, Ni e Zn. porém apresentaram baixos teores quando ponderados pela massa. A aplicação do lodo proporcionou aumento dos teores de metais principalmente nas classes de agregado 2,00-0,25mm e 0,25-0,053mm

Características biológicas de Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus mantidos em novilhas naïve da raça Angus.

SIEPE

Stages of change for physical activity in adults from Southern Brazil: a population-based survey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is evidence that physical activity (PA) interventions tailored to individual's stages of change (SoC) are more effective in promote behavior change than "one-size-fits-all" interventions. However, only a few researches have investigated these stages towards PA behavior in representative samples of the population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with the SoC for PA in a probabilistic sample of adults aged 20 years or over.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A population-based survey was undertaken in Pelotas, Southern Brazil, in 2005. An algorithm was applied to evaluate the SoC for PA, and PA was defined as being engaged in moderate-to-vigorous PA for at least 20 minutes on three times per week. The covariates collected in the questionnaire were: sex, age, skin color, marital status, education level, economic status, family income, smoking, body mass index (BMI) and self-reported health status. Data analyses were performed through Poisson and multinomial regression, taking the sampling design into account.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Face-to-face interviews were applied to 3136 individuals, corresponding to a response rate of 93.5%. The prevalence across the stages was as follows: 38.3% in precontemplation, 13.0% in contemplation, 19.5% in preparation, 5.2% in action and 24.0% in maintenance. The elderly, married, smokers, and those with lower socioeconomic status were less likely to adopt, initiate and maintain regular PA.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite the all benefits of PA, a high proportion of adults from Southern Brazil are physically inactive and do not present intention to engage in regular PA. The profile of those who are inactive but intend to do PA resembles those who are physically active. The findings of the present study can contribute to improve health behaviors and to plan health promotion strategies aimed at increasing the level of PA in the community.</p

Translocating the blood-brain barrier using electrostatics

Copyright © 2012 Ribeiro,Domingues, Freire,Santos and Castanho. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.Mammalian cell membranes regulate homeostasis, protein activity, and cell signaling. The charge at the membrane surface has been correlated with these key events. Although mammalian cells are known to be slightly anionic, quantitative information on the membrane charge and the importance of electrostatic interactions in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics remain elusive. Recently, we reported for the first time that brain endothelial cells (EC) are more negatively charged than human umbilical cord cells, using zeta-potential measurements by dynamic light scattering. Here, we hypothesize that anionicity is a key feature of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and contributes to select which compounds cross into the brain. For the sake of comparison, we also studied the membrane surface charge of blood components—red blood cells (RBC), platelets, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC).To further quantitatively correlate the negative zeta-potential values with membrane charge density, model membranes with different percentages of anionic lipids were also evaluated. From all the cells tested, brain cell membranes are the most anionic and those having their lipids mostly exposed, which explains why lipophilic cationic compounds are more prone to cross the blood-brain barrier.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia — Ministério da Educação e Ciência (FCT-MEC, Portugal) is acknowledged for funding (including fellowships SFRH/BD/42158/2007 to Marta M.B. Ribeiro, SFRH/BD/41750/2007 to Marco M. Domingues and SFRH/BD/70423/2010 to João M. Freire) and project PTDC/QUI-BIQ/119509/2010. Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (European Commission) is also acknowledged for funding (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-3-1-IAPP, Project 230654)

Atypical Bartonellosis in Children: What do We Know?

Aim: To characterise Bartonella infections in a paediatric population requiring hospital admission and review its treatment. Methods: Longitudinal observational retrospective data analysis of children and adolescents admitted with Bartonella infection at a paediatric tertiary hospital from 2010 to 2019. Results: We identified 16 cases of bartonellosis, with a mean age of 8.0 ± 4.5 years old, no sex predominance and 14 had contact with cats. Most of the cases occurred in fall and winter. Clinical presentations included osteomyelitis/arthritis (n = 9), hepatosplenic disease (n = 2), lymphadenitis (n = 2), neuroretinitis (n = 2) and encephalitis (n = 1). Clinical diagnosis was confirmed by serology (n = 16) and Bartonella DNA detection in patient's lymph nodes/hepatic lesion (n = 3). Therapeutic approach varied according to the clinical presentation: azithromycin in lymphadenitis, rifampicin plus ciprofloxacin in hepatosplenic disease, rifampicin and doxycycline in neuroretinitis, ceftriaxone in encephalitis and azithromycin, cotrimoxazole or rifampicin plus azithromycin, cefuroxime, ciprofloxacin or doxycycline in osteomyelitis/arthritis. Immunodeficiency was excluded in seven patients. Seven patients' cats were screened by veterinarians and treated when infected (n = 5). Conclusions: In these clinical presentations, where other infections may be involved, a high index of suspicion is necessary, with emphasis on the epidemiological context. The association of systemic forms with immunodeficiency did not occur in our study. The lack of recommendations for treatment of atypical infection makes the approach of these cases a challenge. Randomised control studies are essential to define the best approach in each case.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lipoxidation and cancer immunity

Lipoxidation is a well-known reaction between electrophilic carbonyl species, formed during oxidation of lipids, and specific proteins that, in most cases, causes an alteration in proteins function. This can occur under physiological conditions but, in many cases, it has been associated to pathological process, including cancer. Lipoxidation may have an effect in cancer development through their effects in tumour cells, as well as through the alteration of immune components and the consequent modulation of the immune response. The formation of protein adducts affects different proteins in cancer, triggering different mechanism, such as proliferation, cell differentiation and apoptosis, among others, altering cancer progression. The divergent results obtained documented that the formation of lipoxidation adducts can have either anti-carcinogenic or pro-carcinogenic effects, depending on the cell type affected and the specific adduct formed. Moreover, lipoxidation adducts may alter the immune response, consequently causing either positive or negative alterations in cancer progression. Therefore, in this review, we summarize the effects of lipoxidation adducts in cancer cells and immune components and their consequences in the evolution of different types of cancer.publishe

Antony and Cleopatra

Analysis done 199

An open and parallel multiresolution framework using block-based adaptive grids

A numerical approach for solving evolutionary partial differential equations in two and three space dimensions on block-based adaptive grids is presented. The numerical discretization is based on high-order, central finite-differences and explicit time integration. Grid refinement and coarsening are triggered by multiresolution analysis, i.e. thresholding of wavelet coefficients, which allow controlling the precision of the adaptive approximation of the solution with respect to uniform grid computations. The implementation of the scheme is fully parallel using MPI with a hybrid data structure. Load balancing relies on space filling curves techniques. Validation tests for 2D advection equations allow to assess the precision and performance of the developed code. Computations of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations for a temporally developing 2D mixing layer illustrate the properties of the code for nonlinear multi-scale problems. The code is open source

Study of Metal/Polymer Interface of Parts Produced by a Hybrid Additive Manufacturing Approach

Acknowledgments This research work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and Centro2020 through the Project reference: UID/Multi/04044/2013, PAMI - ROTEIRO/0328/2013 (Nº 022158) and Portuguese National Innovation Agency (ANI) through the Project reference POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017963, NEXT.parts – Next Generation of Advanced Hybrid Parts (co-promotion nº 17963).The additive manufacturing of multimaterial parts, e.g. metal/plastic, with functional gradients represents for current market demands a great potential of applications [1]. Metal Polymer parts combine the good mechanical properties of the metals with the low weight characteristics, good impact strength, good vibration and sound absorption of the polymers. Nevertheless, the coupling between metal and polymers is a great challenge since the processing factors for each one of them are very different. In addition, a system that makes the hybrid processing - metal/polymer - using only one operation is unknown [2, 3]. To overcome this drawback, a hybrid additive manufacturing system based on the additive technologies of SLM and SL was recently developed by the authors. The SLM and SL techniques joined enabling the production of a photopolymerization of the polymer in the voids of a 3D metal mesh previously produced by SLM [4]. The purpose of this work is the study on the metal/polymer interface of hybrid parts manufactured from the hybrid additive manufacturing system [5]. For this, a core of tool steel (H13) and two different types of photopolymers: one elastomeric (BR3D-DL-Flex) and another one rigid (BR3D-DL-Hard) are considered. A set of six samples for each one of metal core/polymer combination was manufactured and submitted to tensile tests.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio