FTE-LEACH: um protocolo energeticamente eficiente e tolerante a falhas aplicado às redes industriais de sensores sem fio

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of distributed devices in an area in order to monitor physical variables such as temperature, pressure, vibration, motion and environmental conditions in places where wired networks would be difficult or impractical to implement, for example, industrial applications of difficult access, monitoring and control of oil wells on-shore or off-shore, monitoring of large areas of agricultural and animal farming, among others. To be viable, a WSN should have important requirements such as low cost, low latency, and especially low power consumption. However, to ensure these requirements, these networks suffer from limited resources, and eventually being used in hostile environments, leading to high failure rates, such as segmented routing, mes sage loss, reducing efficiency, and compromising the entire network, inclusive. This work aims to present the FTE-LEACH, a fault tolerant and energy efficient routing protocol that maintains efficiency in communication and dissemination of data.This protocol was developed based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and suitable for industrial networks with limited energy resources

Purificação da glicerina bruta obtida a partir da transesterificação do óleo de algodão

The crude glycerine is a raw material that can be used in a wide variety of products. Even with all the impurities inherent in the process of being obtained, the crude glycerin is already in a marketable product. However, the market is much more favorable to the commercialization of purified glycerine. The glycerin is a byproduct gotten from the process of transesterification of waste oils and fats in the production of biodiesel. More recently, the deployment of the new Federal Law of Brazil, related to the implementation of energy resources, forces, from 2008, the increase of 2% biodiesel in diesel common with prospects for 5% (B5). Therefore, it is indispensable that new routes of purification as well as new markets are developed. The objective of this work was to purify, through ion exchange, the crude glycerin, obtained from the reaction of transesterification of cottonseed oil. The cottonseed oil was characterized as the fatty acid composition and physical-chemical properties. The process of ion exchange was conducted in batch. In this process were used strong cation, low anion resins and a mixed resin used to de-ionize water. The purified glycerin was characterized as the content of metals. Tests were performed with activated charcoal adsorption, and for this, it was made tests of time contact with coal as well as quantity of coal used. The time of activation, the amount of the activation solution, the contact time of the glycerol solution in resins, the amount and type of resin applied were evaluated. Considering the analysis made with activated charcoal, when the glycerin solution was treated using the resins individually it was observed that in the conditions for treatment with 10 g of resin, 5 hours of contact with each resin and 50 mL of glycerin solution, its conductivity decreased to a cationic resin, increased to the anionic resin and had a variable value with respect to resin mixed. In the treatment in series, there was a constant decrease in the conductivity of the solution of glycerin. Considering two types of treatment, in series and individually, the content of glycerol in glycerin pre-purified solution with the different resins varied from 12,46 to 29.51% (diluted solution). In analysis performed without the use of activated charcoal, the behavior of the conductivity of the solution of glycerin were similar to results for treatment with activated charcoal, both in series as individually. The solution of glycerin pre-purified had a glycerol content varying from 8.3 to 25.7% (diluted solution). In relation to pH, it had a behavior in accordance with the expected: acid for the glycerin solution treated with cationic resin, basic when the glycerin solution was treated with the anionic resin and neutral when treated with the mixed resin, independent of the kind of procedure used (with or without coal, resins individually or in series). In relation to the color of the glycerin pre-purified solution, the resin that showed the best result was the anionic (colorless), however this does not mean that the solution is more in pure glycerol. The chromatographic analysis of the solutions obtained after the passage through the resins indicated that the treatment was effective by the presence of only one component (glycerol), not considering the solvent of the analysis

Conhecimento sobre energia eólica: um estudo exploratório a partir das redes semânticas naturais de estudantes da cidade de Natal

The human being has a fundamental role in issues concerning scarcity of energy resources as well as in the success of technologies which favor the use of renewable sources, such as wind energy. But what does wind energy mean for people? What are the psychological meanings concerning this term? Aiming to answer these questions, the general objective of this dissertation was to identify and to analyze the knowledge about wind energy taking into account a network of psychological meanings. One hundred and ninety one (191) university students from Natal-RN participated in the study, being male the majority (53%); aged between 17 and 51 years old (M=23.3 years; SD=5.7). Participants responded to self reports using the Natural Semantic Networks (NSW) technique, as well as to several sociodemographic questions. The results showed a consistent, positive and useful general semantic network. In this semantic network, knowledge about wind energy was represented by words that correspond to the appeal of (pro) environmental stance (e.g., clean and nature), that evinced both the technological aspect (e.g., force) and the economic aspect (e.g., economy). Results from different groups were also analyzed. The first set of groups (non-environemental and environmental) was divided considering the course (e.g., ecology and economy). The second set of groups(non-caretaker and caretaker) was divided based on the practice of environmental care expressed. Subtle differences were observed in the semantic networks of caretakers, who emphasized environment, an attribute not mentioned by non-caretakes. This indicates a construction of knowledge that is influenced by the presence or absence of the environmental commitment. Such findings may be useful in the construction of instruments for surveys and in the development of public and educational policies. Additionally, they may assist the media towards a more objective performance concerning wind energy

Estimativa da evapotranspiração espacial em uma região semiárida utilizando sensoriamento remoto

With the need to deploy management and monitoring systems of natural resources in areas susceptible to environmental degradation, as is the case of semiarid regions, several works have been developed in order to find effective models and technically and economically viable. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the daily actual evapotranspiration (ETr) through the application of the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL), from remote sensing products, in a semiarid region, Seridó of the Rio Grande do Norte, and do the validation of these estimates using ETr values obtained by the Penman-Monteith (standard method of the Food and Agriculture Organization-FAO). The SEBAL is based on energy balance method, which allows obtaining the vertical latent heat flux (LE) with orbital images and, consequently, of the evapotranspiration through the difference of flows, also vertical, of heat in the soil (G), sensitive heat (H) and radiation balance (Rn). The study area includes the surrounding areas of the Dourado reservoir, located in the Currais Novos/RN city. For the implementation of the algorithm were used five images TM/Landsat-5. The work was divided in three chapters in order to facilitate a better discussion of each part of the SEBAL processing, distributed as follows: first chapter addressing the spatio-temporal variability of the biophysical variables; second chapter dealing with spatio-temporal distribution of instant and daily radiation balance; and the third chapter discussing the heart of the work, the daily actual evapotranspiration estimation and the validation than to the study area

Aplicabilidade do Rorshach na avaliação psicológica do autismo

This study investigates the applicability of the Rorschach Method for evaluating the personality of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).The relevance of this study is justified by the limited number of investigations published in the research literature concerning the use of psychological tests used for evaluating the personality of individuals with ASD. The Rorschach Method was chosen as an appropriate instrument considering it reveals the personality s basic structure, including characteristics of the affectivity, sensuality, inner life, mental resources, psychic energy and general characteristics and intellectual state of the individual. The general objective of this investigation consisted of verifying the applicability of the use the Rorschach Method in the evaluation of the characteristics of people's personality with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).The study also sought to identify perceptive factors of the personality structure of individuals with ASD, provide contributions of the understanding of this syndrome, seeking the establishment of possible therapeutic interventions starting from diagnostic by Rorschach Method. In addition, this investigation aims at verifying the adequacy of using the Rorschach Method as an instrument for evaluating the personality characteristics of individuals with ASD and its possible use in Brazil, starting from preliminary normative results. Participants consisted of 44 youngsters and adults, both genders with age range 14 - 39 years-old (average: 23.5 years-old) distributed in 2 groups. Group 1: composed with 22 youngsters and adults with clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (communication impairments, social interaction deficits, restricted and repetitive interests and activities); Group 2: composed with 22 youngsters and adults with typical behavior. The participants were paired to gender and age, individually. The Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests were applied to evaluate statistical differences between the groups, considering demographic and social data. The results indicate the presence of restricted interest or difficulty in the expression of the social and affective interaction of people with ASD. However, the need of broader normative studies concerning the use of personality evaluation instruments for people with ASD is warranted. These investigations could help understand the psychic dynamism of this population, offering subsidies that can be added to the current techniques of diagnosis. The Rorschach Method is susceptible to application but it is necessary to respect the individual limitations of these people and to establish more criterions about the spectrum

Análise de uso e cobertura do solo no município de Parelhas/RN

The human interference in the semiarid region of Seridó Potiguar has promoted the increase of degraded areas. The economic dynamic that was established in the Seridó territory, especially after the fall of the trinomial cattle-cotton-mining in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century as pillars of the regional economy, resulted in an accelerated process of erosion of natural resources. The municipalities of the Seridó region have been spatially reordered by this new economic dynamic, marked by the growth of existing enterprises, and the development of new agricultural practices. One of the municipalities in the region that restructured its territorial space with the emergence of new agro-industrial activities was the town of Parelhas. With the demise of the trinomial cattle-cotton-mining in the 1980s, other productive activities were intensified from the 1990s, amongst them, pottery, responsible for the vegetal extraction for use as energy source. This recent economic and spatial restructuring in the region, reflected in the Parelhense municipal territory, required new productive ingredients responsible for the modification of past production relations that were based on cattle, cotton and mining. By that a process of exploring the environment was unleashed, especially the native vegetation, in an uncontrolled manner. In this context, the objective of this study was to survey and detect deforestation in the areas of Caatinga vegetation, used indiscriminately as energy supply for new agricultural practices, using remote sensing techniques based on the quantification of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index / NDVI, Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index / SAVI, surface temperature and rainfall data in the years 1990 and 2010. The results indicated that SAVI values above 0.2 in 1990 and 2010 represent the areas with the highest density of vegetation that occur exclusively along the major drainages in the town and areas of higher elevations. The areas between the ranges of values from 0.5 to 0.15 SAVI are areas with poor vegetation. On the other hand the highest values of temperature are distributed in the western and southeastern parts of the township, usually in places where the soil is exposed or there is sparse vegetation. The areas of bare soil decreased in extension in 2010 at 11, 6% when related to 1990, this was caused by a higher rainfall intensity in the first half of 2010, but no regeneration of vegetation occurred in some places in the western and southeastern areas of the municipality today, due to the extraction of firewood to fuel the furnaces of industries in town