Detecção de interface em tanques de petróleo usando transmissores de nível e controladores Fuzzy

This work presents a proposal to detect interface in atmospheric oil tanks by installing a differential pressure level transmitter to infer the oil-water interface. The main goal of this project is to maximize the quantity of free water that is delivered to the drainage line by controlling the interface. A Fuzzy Controller has been implemented by using the interface transmitter as the Process Variable. Two ladder routine was generated to perform the control. One routine was developed to calculate the error and error variation. The other was generate to develop the fuzzy controller itself. By using rules, the fuzzy controller uses these variables to set the output. The output is the position variation of the drainage valve. Although the ladder routine was implemented into an Allen Bradley PLC, Control Logix family it can be implemented into any brand of PLCs

Sistema de sensoriamento eletromagnético utilizado para detecção da contaminação do óleo isolante do motor no método de elevação artificial do tipo bombeio centrífugo submerso

In the artificial lift method by Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP), the energy is transmitted for the well´s deep through a flat electric handle, where it is converted into mechanical energy through an engine of sub-surface, which is connected to a centrifugal pump. This transmits energy to the fluid under the pressure form, bringing it to the surface In this method the subsurface equipment is basically divided into: pump, seal and motor. The main function of the seal is the protect the motor, avoiding the motor´s oil be contaminated by oil production and the consequent burning of it. Over time, the seal will be wearing and initiates a contamination of motor oil, causing it to lose its insulating characteristics. This work presents a design of a magnetic sensor capable of detecting contamination of insulating oil used in the artificial lift method of oil-type Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP). The objective of this sensor is to generate alarm signal just the moment when the contamination in the isolated oil is present, enabling the implementation of a predictive maintenance. The prototype was designed to work in harsh conditions to reach a depth of 2000m and temperatures up to 150°C. It was used a simulator software to defined the mechanical and electromagnetic variables. Results of field experiments were performed to validate the prototype. The final results performed in an ESP system with a 62HP motor showed a good reliability and fast response of the prototype.

Papel da localização da carga em determinação dos parâmetros do canal iônico

To aureus α-HL channel, we used the cysteine-scanning mutagenesis technique. Twenty-four mutants were produced from the substitution of a single aminoacid of the primary structure of the α-HL pro this yzed after the incorporation of a mutant channel in planar lipid bilayer membranes. The modified proteins were studied in the absence and presence of watersoluble specific sulphydryl-specific reagents, in order to introduce a strong positive or negative harge at positions of substitution. The introduction of a negative charge in the stem region onverted the selectivity of the channel from weak anionic to more cationic. However, the troduction of a positive charge increased its selectivity to the anion. The degree of these alterations was inversely dependent on the channel radius at the position of the introduced harge (selectivity). As to the asymmetry of the conductance-voltage, the influence of the harge was more complex. The introduction of the negative charge in the stem region (the trans art of the pore) provoked a decrease. The intensity of these alterations depended on the radius, and on the type of free charge at the pore entrance. These results suggest that the free charge at surrounds the pore wall is responsible for the cation-anion selectivity of the channel. The istribution of the charges between the entrances is crucial for determining the asymmetry of e conductance-voltage curves. We hope that these results serve as a model for studies with other nanometric channels, in biological or planar lipid bilayer membranes or in iotechnological applications

Avaliação do impacto do treinamento de clínica em hanseníase e sua contribuição para o aumento da detecção da doença no Estado do Rio Grande do Norte

Hansen´s disease is considered a serious public health problem. In 2006, the Ministry of Health reported that worldwide, Brazil ranked 2nd in the number of cases of the disease, surpassed only by India. The North region is the geographical area in Brazil that presents the most cases. In the state of Rio Grande do Norte, the disease is considered to be eliminated because its prevalence has been identified as 1 per 10.000 inhabitants, criteria established by the State Elimination Letter of 2005. Training programs have been offered by the Coordination for the Control of Hansen´s Disease Program of Rio Grande do Norte, PCH-RN since 1997, with the support of the English governmental agency Leprosy Relief Association, LRA, with no evaluation having been conducted. The objective of this study was to evaluate the training programs in clinical diagnosis of Hansen´s disease and their contribution to the detection of the disease in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. The study was conducted in seven municipalities that are known as Regional Public Health Units (URSAPs): São José de Mipibu URSAP I, Mossoró URSAP II, João Câmara URSAP III, Caicó URSAP IV, Santa Cruz URSAP V, Pau dos Ferros URSAP VI and Natal, capital city of the State, in the Metropolitan Region. Physicians and nurses of the Family Health Program PSF were interviewed as to their perceptions of the implementation of the training program in clinica diagnosis of Hansen´s Disease conducted by the PCH-RN. They evaluated their own practice and the training program. These professionals presented a positive evaluation of the program and gave suggestions for future courses. The results of this study suggest the need for permanent education. Data of the disease obtained from the official records of the Secretariat of Health and from the interviews indicate that health education is the means to control Hansen´s disease effectively

Condutas de profissionais que realizam a consulta pré-natal na Estratégia Saúde da Família quanto à detecção, tratamento e acompanhamento da gestante com sífilis

The objective of this exploratory descriptive quantitative study was to analyze the behaviors in the detection, treatment and followup of the pregnant woman with syphilis, by health professionals that conduct the pre-natal consultation in the Family Health Strategy, as to the adherence to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. The study was conducted in nine municipalites of the Trairi region in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. Data were collected during the months of July through September 2007, by means of a questionnaire with a population of 53 health professionals, 30 nurses and 23 physicians. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results were organized in three major items: knowledge of the health professionals about the symptomatology of syphilis and their actions in the detection of the disease; actions in the treatment of the pregnant woman with syphilis; and the actions of followup of the desease. We identified that 81,2% of the professionals have knowledge about the symptomatology of syphilis in the pregnant woman;79,2% request the VDRL exam in the adequate intervals and approximately 50% conduct the treatment in conformity with the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. For the followup care of the infected woman, 79,2% request a monthly VDRL examination, 69,8% explain the disease to the pregnant woman, and 20,7% affirm that they conduct a proper reception to the woman.We conclude that the majority of the health professionals have knowledge of the detection, treatment and followup of the pregnant woman with syphilis. However, the actions of some professionals diverge from the conduct procedures recommended by the Ministry of Health, as to the requesting of the examinations, medication prescription and notification of the iesease. This indicates the need for improved

Ações de detecção precoce do câncer de mama realizadas por profissionais da estratégia saúde da família

This study is an exploratory descriptive study with a quantitative approach. The objective was to identify the actions for the early detection of breast cancer conducted by the health professionals of the Family Health Strategy in the Trairi region of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The research was conducted in nine municipalities of the region. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire with 52 Family Health Strategy professionals, 30 nurses and 22 physicians, that work in the region. Analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics. The results were organized and discussed in three areas: Knowledge about the early detection of breast cancer; Actions for early detection detection of breast cancer, and Difficulties experienced in the screening actions for breast cancer. The results indicate that these professionals (100%) have knowledge of the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and that the majority (96,2%) conduct screening actions in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. However, a considerable number (55,8%) of these professionals encounters difficulties while conducting the screening procedures in his work setting. The difficulties varied from those of a personal nature to those of access to the procedure, such as the unavailability of sufficient quotas of screening exams. We conclude that the majority of health professionals execute the screening actions for breast cancer in their work settings according to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health, even though they encounter difficulties in the conclusion of the mammography and ultrasound exams, essential procedures in the early detection of breast cancer. We understand that these professionals demonstrate knowledge of secondary prevention even though they do not execute all the actions necessary for early detection primarily because they are impeded by the blockage of access to exam quotas. We conclude that, in spite of the difficulties experienced, the procedures for the early detection of breast cancer are being executed by the majority of the Family Health Strategy professionals in the Trairí region, specifically the clinical examination of the breast, orientation of breast self examination, requests for mammography and ultra sound examinations. Measures are needed that can mediate the difficulties, that will permit the realization of secondary prevention procedures with the population at risk in the region. We suggest training and actualization courses on the complete screening process that includes a wide discussion of the new legislation that provides the mammography exam for women over 40 years. We believe that the acquisition of such a work perspective for the early detection of breast cancer, along with knowledge of health vigilance and of breast cancer, will enhance integral health care of women that constitutes an aim of the nurse and the family health team

Modelagem de dados de falhas de equipamentos de sub-superfície em poços de petróleo da Bacia Potiguar

This master´s thesis presents a reliability study conducted among onshore oil fields in the Potiguar Basin (RN/CE) of Petrobras company, Brazil. The main study objective was to build a regression model to predict the risk of failures that impede production wells to function properly using the information of explanatory variables related to wells such as the elevation method, the amount of water produced in the well (BSW), the ratio gas-oil (RGO), the depth of the production bomb, the operational unit of the oil field, among others. The study was based on a retrospective sample of 603 oil columns from all that were functioning between 2000 and 2006. Statistical hypothesis tests under a Weibull regression model fitted to the failure data allowed the selection of some significant predictors in the set considered to explain the first failure time in the wells

Proposta de localização de uma unidade de tratamento de óleo e gordura residual de fritura na cidade do Natal/RN para produção de biodiesel

This work addresses biodiesel by transesterification from the use of waste frying oil as a possible technological alternative for both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and by presenting themselves as an environmental call to designate a rational use of oil when no longer played in the environment to become renewable energy. It has proposed location of a residual oil and fat treatment plant to produce biodiesel, using models of Location and Routing for the improvement of routes. To achieve the goal, questionnaires were administered in establishments that use oil or vegetable fat in their productive activities in order to quantify the residue, to analyze actions and environmental perception of people who work directly with the residue on the destination you are being given to oil and fat used. It has indicated using of two single setup location, the method of Center of Gravity and the model of Ardalan, a geographical point that minimizes the costs of transporting waste to the treatment plant. Actions have been proposed for the improvement of collection routes this residue using the Routing Method of Scanning, as an illustration. The results demonstrated the lack of knowledge of the people who deal directly with large amounts of waste, on the environmental impacts caused by their incorrect disposal. The models used were uniform since point out to neighborhoods in similar regions. The neighborhoods of Lagoa Nova / Morro Branco (Ardalan) and Nova Descoberta (Center of Gravity) as ideal for the installation of treatment plant. However, it is suggested to be tested other models that take into account new variables than those used (supply of waste and the distance between points). The routing through the method of scanning has shown that it is possible, in a simple way to optimize routes in order to reduce distances and therefore the logistics costs in the collection of such waste. Introducing a route as a test to gather the twenty largest oil suppliers used in sample frying, using as a main factor time 8 hour of working shift every day

Cultura organizacional e desempenho dos colaboradores :um estudo exploratório no setor hoteleiro

This work focuses on the relationship between organizational culture and quality culture in the hotel sector of NATAL/RN with respect to employee performance. The themes organizational culture and quality have been the research focus of administration theorists and a constant concern of professional managers, since the Japanese demonstrated effective forms or western management. In this study, the Competing Values Model (C.V.M.) (Quinn e Cameron, 1996; Quinn, 1998; Santos, 1998, 2000; Teixeira, 2001), which was tested on north-American organizations and considered a high value academic and professional instrument, was applied. The model maps the organizational culture on a profile with four elements: clan, adhocracy, market and hierarchy. The C.V.M., associated with the taximetrics created by Cameron (which classifies quality culture in for levels: status quo, error detection, error prevention and perpetual creative quality) has been related with organizational performance. In this study, these two models are used jointly and tested in the hotel sector. The results indicate that the strongest element of the profile is clan, which is characterized by internal focus, participation and people involvement, followed by the adhocracy element, which has an external focus, emphasizes flexibility and is characterized by dynamic enterprising and creativity. Regarding the level of the culture s quality in the hotel, the highest level, that of perpetual improvement and creativity, which attempts to enchant and to surprise the clients, was most frequently cited, followed by the error detection level, which has as its goal to discover and correct mistakes, trying, consequently, to reduce waste. The results suggest that employee performance as measured on some indicators is related to elements of the organizational culture profile and quality level

Algoritmos para o problema de localização de uma facilidade com distâncias limitadas e restrições de atendimento

The objective in the facility location problem with limited distances is to minimize the sum of distance functions from the facility to the customers, but with a limit on each distance, after which the corresponding function becomes constant. The problem has applications in situations where the service provided by the facility is insensitive after a given threshold distance (eg. fire station location). In this work, we propose a global optimization algorithm for the case in which there are lower and upper limits on the numbers of customers that can be served

Algoritmos de otimização para decisões de localização de facilidades e distribuição em sistemas multiníveis de transporte rodoviário de carga

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Um protocolo de comunicação multicast na camada de aplicação com Consciência de Localização

Internet applications such as media streaming, collaborative computing and massive multiplayer are on the rise,. This leads to the need for multicast communication, but unfortunately group communications support based on IP multicast has not been widely adopted due to a combination of technical and non-technical problems. Therefore, a number of different application-layer multicast schemes have been proposed in recent literature to overcome the drawbacks. In addition, these applications often behave as both providers and clients of services, being called peer-topeer applications, and where participants come and go very dynamically. Thus, servercentric architectures for membership management have well-known problems related to scalability and fault-tolerance, and even peer-to-peer traditional solutions need to have some mechanism that takes into account member's volatility. The idea of location awareness distributes the participants in the overlay network according to their proximity in the underlying network allowing a better performance. Given this context, this thesis proposes an application layer multicast protocol, called LAALM, which takes into account the actual network topology in the assembly process of the overlay network. The membership algorithm uses a new metric, IPXY, to provide location awareness through the processing of local information, and it was implemented using a distributed shared and bi-directional tree. The algorithm also has a sub-optimal heuristic to minimize the cost of membership process. The protocol has been evaluated in two ways. First, through an own simulator developed in this work, where we evaluated the quality of distribution tree by metrics such as outdegree and path length. Second, reallife scenarios were built in the ns-3 network simulator where we evaluated the network protocol performance by metrics such as stress, stretch, time to first packet and reconfiguration group time

Uma arquitetura baseada em agentes para configuração dinâmica de aplicações inteligentes em ambiente foundation fieldbus

The industrial automation is directly linked to the development of information tecnology. Better hardware solutions, as well as improvements in software development methodologies make possible the rapid growth of the productive process control. In this thesis, we propose an architecture that will allow the joining of two technologies in hardware (industrial network) and software field (multiagent systems). The objective of this proposal is to join those technologies in a multiagent architecture to allow control strategies implementations in to field devices. With this, we intend develop an agents architecture to detect and solve problems which may occur in the industrial network environment. Our work ally machine learning with industrial context, become proposed multiagent architecture adaptable to unfamiliar or unexpected production environment. We used neural networks and presented an allocation strategies of these networks in industrial network field devices. With this we intend to improve decision support at plant level and allow operations human intervention independent

Localização e mapeamento simultâneos de ambientes planos usando visão monocular e representação híbrida do ambiente

The goal of this work is to propose a SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) solution based on Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) in order to make possible a robot navigates along the environment using information from odometry and pre-existing lines on the floor. Initially, a segmentation step is necessary to classify parts of the image in floor or non floor . Then the image processing identifies floor lines and the parameters of these lines are mapped to world using a homography matrix. Finally, the identified lines are used in SLAM as landmarks in order to build a feature map. In parallel, using the corrected robot pose, the uncertainty about the pose and also the part non floor of the image, it is possible to build an occupancy grid map and generate a metric map with the obstacle s description. A greater autonomy for the robot is attained by using the two types of obtained map (the metric map and the features map). Thus, it is possible to run path planning tasks in parallel with localization and mapping. Practical results are presented to validate the proposal

Navegação cooperativa de um robô humanóide e um robô com rodas usando informação visual

This work presents a cooperative navigation systemof a humanoid robot and a wheeled robot using visual information, aiming to navigate the non-instrumented humanoid robot using information obtained from the instrumented wheeled robot. Despite the humanoid not having sensors to its navigation, it can be remotely controlled by infra-red signals. Thus, the wheeled robot can control the humanoid positioning itself behind him and, through visual information, find it and navigate it. The location of the wheeled robot is obtained merging information from odometers and from landmarks detection, using the Extended Kalman Filter. The marks are visually detected, and their features are extracted by image processing. Parameters obtained by image processing are directly used in the Extended Kalman Filter. Thus, while the wheeled robot locates and navigates the humanoid, it also simultaneously calculates its own location and maps the environment (SLAM). The navigation is done through heuristic algorithms based on errors between the actual and desired pose for each robot. The main contribution of this work was the implementation of a cooperative navigation system for two robots based on visual information, which can be extended to other robotic applications, as the ability to control robots without interfering on its hardware, or attaching communication devices