Laparoscopy Pneumoperitoneum Fuzzy Modeling

Abstract: Gas volume to intra-peritoneal pressure fuzzy modeling for evaluating pneumoperitoneum in videolaparoscopic surgery is proposed in this paper. The proposed approach innovates in using fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory for evaluating the accuracy of the prognosis value in order to minimize or avoid iatrogenic injuries due to the blind needle puncture. In so doing, it demonstrates the feasibility of fuzzy analysis to contribute to medicine and health care. Fuzzy systems is employed here in synergy with artificial neural network based on backpropaga tion, multilayer perceptron architecture for building up numerical functions. Experimental data employed for analysis were collected in the accomplishment of the pneumoperitoneum in a random population of patients submitted to videolaparoscopic surgeries. Numerical results indicate that the proposed fuzzy mapping for describing the relation from the intra peritoneal pressure measures as function injected gas volumes succeeded in determinining a fuzzy model for this nonlinear system when compared to the statistical model

Dry matter and nitrogen partitioning and root growth of young field-grown Thompson Seedless grapevines

Seasonal changes in dry weight and nitrogen distribution were quantified on 2-year-old pruned and unpruned Thompson Seedless grapevines grown in the field. Entire vines were harvested several times during the growing season from budbreak to fruit harvest. Vine dry weight and N coptent increased throughout the season for both treatments, however, the accumulation of both parameters was delayed and of a smaller magnitude for the pruned vines. The increase in root dry weight of the pruned vines occurred later in the season when compared to the unpruned vines, but there was no difference in root dry weight between treatments at the end of the study. Root N content remained constant early in the growing season followed by a significant increase later in the season for both treatments. The root N concentration decreased as a result of an increase in root dry weight, then it leveled off at about 1.2 % for both treatments due to similar rates of root dry matter and N accumulation. The results do not support the role of roots as the major storage organ of N to supply the rest of the plant early in the season for young grapevines. However, N from other permanent structures of the vine supplied between 14 and 26 % of that required for shoot growth shortly after budbreak

The Limits on Cosmological Anisotropies and Inhomogeneities from COBE Data

Assuming that the cosmological principle holds, Maartens, Ellis and Stoeger (MES) recently constructed a detailed scheme linking anisotropies in the cosmic background radiation (CMB) with anisotropies and inhomogeneities in the large scale structure of the universe and showed how to place limits on those anisotropies and inhomogeneities simply by using CMB quadrupole and octupole limits. First we indicate and discuss the connection between the covariant multipole moments of the temperature anisotropy used in the MES scheme and the quadrupole and octupole results from COBE. Then we introduce those results into the MES limit equations to obtain definite quantitative limits on the complete set of cosmological measures of anisotropy and inhomogeneity. We find that all the anisotropy measures are less than 10^{-4} in the case of those not affected by the expansion rate H, and less than 10^{-6} Mpc^{-1} in the case of those which are. These results quantitatively demonstrate that the observable universe is indeed close to Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) on the largest scales, and can be adequately modelled by an almost-FLRW model -- that is, the anisotropies and inhomogeneities characterizing the observable universe on the largest scales are not too large to be considered perturbations to FLRW.Comment: Original paper with corrections. ApJ 476 435 (1997) erratum to appear ApJ Sept 199

Análise das relações de troca da melancia produzida na região do Submédio São Francisco.

O objetivo desse estudo é analisar as relações de trocas da melancia com um dos principais insumos utilizados na obtenção de sua produção. da melanci

Análise de custos de produção e rentabilidade do melão produzido na região do Submédio São Francisco.

Nesse estudo procurou-se analisar o custo de produção e a rentabilidade da exploração do melão na região do Submédio São Francisco, que é o terceiro maior pólo de produção dessa fruta no país. Os dados foram levantados nas unidades agrícolas típicas de produção de melão da região em estudo. Para a determinação da viabilidade econômica da exploração utilizou-se o método de orçamentação parcial do Instituto de Economia Agrícola. Os resultados idicaram que o segmento insumos é o que mais onera os custos operacionais da exploração do melão, respondendo por 64,34% desses custos. A análise de viabilidade econômica revelou que a exploração do melão na região do Submédio São Francisco apresenta resultados economicamente satisfatórios em diversos índices de eficiência econômica. A relação benefício custo foi de 1,37, o ponto de nivelamento correspondeu a produção de 10.939 kg/ha e a margem de segurança registrou a cifra de - 0,27