Estudo da variabilidade da deriva vertical do plasma ionosférico sobre a região de Natal/RN, Fortaleza/CE e Cachoeira Paulista/SP para alguns casos de tempestades magnéticas de abril a setembro de 2000

In this work are presented the results of research on the variation of vertical plasma drift from the F layer that commonly occurs during the period close to the going down of the sun (between 21UT - 22UT), and consisting of an increase in the F layer in time of day and a drop at night on the cities of Natal / RN (The 33.7º, 5.6º S), Fortaleza / CE (38.45º O, 3.9º S) and Cachoeira Paulista / SP (45.0ºO, 22.7º S ). Thus, data was used (ionograms) virtual height t ( h' ) as a function of the frequency F for the layer of the ionosphere. These data were collected through ionossonda type CADI (Canadian Advanced Digital Ionosonde) to the cities of Natal and Fortaleza, and the Digisonde DPS to the town of Cachoeira Paulista. They considered only the data available 2000 maximum solar year. With the virtual height ( h' ) data reduced in the frequencies of 6MHz and 5MHz, the next step was to calculate. The results showed that the variability of the vertical drift rate F ionospheric layer periods of magnetic storms is related both to the penetration of the electric fields as the disturbance dynamo electric fields.

Comunidades zooplanctônicas como bioindicadoras da qualidade da água de quatro reservatórios da região semi-árida do Rio Grande do Norte

The response of zooplankton assemblages to variations in the water quality of four man-made lakes, caused by eutrophication and siltation, was investigated by means of canonical correspondence analysis. Monte Carlo simulations using the CCA eingenvalues as test statistics revealed that changes in zooplankton species composition along the environmental gradients of trophic state and abiogenic turbidity were highly significant. The species Brachionus calyciflorus, Thermocyclops sp. and Argyrodiaptomus sp. were good indicators of eutrophic conditions while the species Brachionus dolabratus, Keratella tropica and Hexarthra sp. were good indicators of high turbidity due to suspended sediments. The rotifer genus Brachionus was the most species-rich taxon, comprising five species which were associated with different environmental conditions. Therefore, we tested whether this genus alone could potentially be a better biological indicator of these environmental gradients than the entire zooplankton assemblages or any other random set of five species. The ordination results show that the five Brachionus species alone did not explain better the observed pattern of environmental variation than most random sets of five species. Therefore, this genus could not be selected as a target taxon for more intensive environmental monitoring as has been previously suggested by Attayde and Bozelli (1998). Overall, our results show that changes in the water quality of man-made lakes in a tropical semi-arid region have significant effects on the structure of zooplankton assemblages that can potentially affect the functioning of these ecosystems

Extração e análise da fração lipídica da microalga monoraphidium sp., síntese e caracterização do seu biodiesel

The cultivation of microalgae biomass in order to produce biodiesel arises as an extremely promising aspect, in that the microalgae culture includes short cycle of reproduction, smaller areas for planting and residual biomass rich in protein content. The present dissertation evaluates the performance and features, through spectrometry in the region of infrared with transformed Fourier (FTIR) and spectrometry in the region of UVvisible (UV-Vis), of the extracted lipid material (LM) using different techniques of cell wall disruption (mechanical agitation at low and at high spin and agitation associated with cavitation). The technique of gas chromatography (GC) brought to light the success of alkaline transesterification in the conversion of oil into methyl monoesters (MME), which was also analyzed by spectroscopic techniques (FTIR, proton magnetic resonance (1H NMR) and carbon (13C NMR). Through thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were analyzed the lipid material (LM), biodiesel and the microalgae biomass. The method which provided the best results concerning the efficiency in extraction of the LP of Monoraphidium sp. (12,51%) was by mechanical agitation at high spin (14 000 rpm), for 2 hours being the ideal time, as shown by the t test. The spectroscopic techniques (1H NMR, 13C NMR and FTIR) confirmed that the structure of methyl monoesters and the chromatographic data (CG) revealed a high content of saturated fatty acid esters (about 70%) being the major constituent eicosanoic acid (33,7%), which justifies the high thermal stability of microalgae biodiesel. The TGA also ratified the conversion rate (96%) of LM into MME, pointing out the quantitative results compatible with the values obtained through GC (about 98%) and confirmed the efficiency of the extraction methods used, showing that may be a good technique to confirm the extraction of these materials. The content of LM microalgae obtained (12,51%) indicates good potential for using such material as a raw material for biodiesel production, when compared to oil content which can be obtained from traditional oil for this use, since the productivity of microalgae per hectare is much larger and requires an extremely reduced period to renew its cultivation