Dissipative three-wave structures in stimulated backscattering. I. A subluminous solitary attractor

We present a solitary solution of the three-wave nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) model - governing resonant space-time stimulated Brillouin or Raman backscattering - in the presence of a cw pump and dissipative material and Stokes waves. The study is motivated by pulse formation in optical fiber experiments. As a result of the instability any initial bounded Stokes signal is amplified and evolves to a subluminous backscattered Stokes pulse whose shape and velocity are uniquely determined by the damping coefficients and the cw-pump level. This asymptotically stable solitary three-wave structure is an attractor for any initial conditions in a compact support, in contrast to the known superluminous dissipative soliton solution which calls for an unbounded support. The linear asymptotic theory based on the Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskunov assertion allows us to determine analytically the wave-front slope and the subluminous velocity, which are in remarkable agreement with the numerical computation of the nonlinear PDE model when the dynamics attains the asymptotic steady regime. © 1997 The American Physical Society.

Highlights from the I international symposium of thrombosis and anticoagulation in internal medicine, October 23-25, 2008, Sao Paulo, Brazil

The importance of thrombosis and anticoagulation in clinical practice is rooted firmly in several fundamental constructs that can be applied both broadly and globally. Awareness and the appropriate use of anticoagulant therapy remain the keys to prevention and treatment. However, to assure maximal efficacy and safety, the clinician must, according to the available evidence, choose the right drug, at the right dose, for the right patient, under the right indication, and for the right duration of time. The first International Symposium of Thrombosis and Anticoagulation in Internal Medicine was a scientific program developed by clinicians for clinicians. The primary objective of the meeting was to educate, motivate and inspire internists, cardiologists and hematologists by convening national and international visionaries, thought-leaders and dedicated clinician-scientists in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This article is a focused summary of the symposium proceedings. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009.

A comparison between diuretics and angiotensin-receptor blocker agents in patients with stage I hypertension (PREVER-treatment trial): Study protocol for a randomized double-blind controlled trial

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Brazil, and hypertension is its major risk factor. The benefit of its drug treatment to prevent major cardiovascular events was consistently demonstrated. Angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARB) have been the preferential drugs in the management of hypertension worldwide, despite the absence of any consistent evidence of advantage over older agents, and the concern that they may be associated with lower renal protection and risk for cancer. Diuretics are as efficacious as other agents, are well tolerated, have longer duration of action and low cost, but have been scarcely compared with ARBs. A study comparing diuretic and ARB is therefore warranted.Methods/design: This is a randomized, double-blind, clinical trial, comparing the association of chlorthalidone and amiloride with losartan as first drug option in patients aged 30 to 70 years, with stage I hypertension. The primary outcomes will be variation of blood pressure by time, adverse events and development or worsening of microalbuminuria and of left ventricular hypertrophy in the EKG. The secondary outcomes will be fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular events: myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, evidence of new subclinical atherosclerosis and sudden death. The study will last 18 months. The sample size will be of 1200 participants for group in order to confer enough power to test for all primary outcomes. The project was approved by the Ethics committee of each participating institution.Discussion: The putative pleiotropic effects of ARB agents, particularly renal protection, have been disputed, and they have been scarcely compared with diuretics in large clinical trials, despite that they have been at least as efficacious as newer agents in managing hypertension. Even if the null hypothesis is not rejected, the information will be useful for health care policy to treat hypertension in Brazil. Clinical trials registration number: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00971165. © 2011 Fuchs et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Managing object identity with less I/O operations

Non-conventional database management systems are used to achieve a better performance when dealing with complex data. One fundamental concept of these systems is object identity (OID). Two techniques can be used for the implementation of OIDs: physical or logical. A logical implementation of OIDs, based on an Indirection Table, is used by NuGeM, a multimedia data manager kernel which is described in this paper. NuGeM Indirection Table allows the relocation of all pages in a database. The proposed strategy modifies the workings of this table so that it is possible to reduce considerably the number of I/O operations during the request and release of pages containing objects and their OIDs. Tests show a reduction of 84% in reading operations and a 67% reduction in writing operations when pages are requested. Although no changes were observed in writing operations during the release of pages, a 100% of reduction in reading operations was obtained. © 2012 IEEE.

Structural and Phylogenetic Studies with MjTX-I Reveal a Multi-Oligomeric Toxin - a Novel Feature in Lys49-PLA2s Protein Class

The mortality caused by snakebites is more damaging than many tropical diseases, such as dengue haemorrhagic fever, cholera, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis and Chagas disease. For this reason, snakebite envenoming adversely affects health services of tropical and subtropical countries and is recognized as a neglected disease by the World Health Organization. One of the main components of snake venoms is the Lys49-phospholipases A2, which is catalytically inactive but possesses other toxic and pharmacological activities. Preliminary studies with MjTX-I from Bothrops moojeni snake venom revealed intriguing new structural and functional characteristics compared to other bothropic Lys49-PLA2s. We present in this article a comprehensive study with MjTX-I using several techniques, including crystallography, small angle X-ray scattering, analytical size-exclusion chromatography, dynamic light scattering, myographic studies, bioinformatics and molecular phylogenetic analyses.Based in all these experiments we demonstrated that MjTX-I is probably a unique Lys49-PLA2, which may adopt different oligomeric forms depending on the physical-chemical environment. Furthermore, we showed that its myotoxic activity is dramatically low compared to other Lys49-PLA2s, probably due to the novel oligomeric conformations and important mutations in the C-terminal region of the protein. The phylogenetic analysis also showed that this toxin is clearly distinct from other bothropic Lys49-PLA2s, in conformity with the peculiar oligomeric characteristics of MjTX-I and possible emergence of new functionalities inresponse to environmental changes and adaptation to new preys. © 2013 Salvador et al.

Planejamento orçamentário empresarial de indústrias do Distrito Industrial I de Bauru

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Concepções da sexualidade romana na Inglaterra vitoriana: a leitura sobre Ovídio

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Políticas Públicas & Desenvolvimento Rural: o Programa de Microbacias I e II no Estado de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Geografia - FCT

O simulacro da escrita de memória: Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Murilo Mendes e Pedro Nava

O artigo analisa o discurso de memória e a relação dessa forma de escrita com a cultura e a história. Para tanto, estuda a presença do negro em quatro livros de memória: Boitempo (I e II) de Carlos Drummond de Andrade, A Idade do Serrote de Murilo Mendes e Baú de Ossos de Pedro Nava.

Concepções de educação e educação ambiental nos trabalhos do I EPEA

A necessidade de questionar o “conceito essencial da educação” e de assumiruma postura crítica em face das “concepções usualmente presentes a respeitodos fins da educação” motivou o desenvolvimento desta investigação. Nossaintenção é contribuir para uma reflexão sobre os fundamentos da razão e daspráticas educativas de maneira geral e da educação ambiental em especial.Assim, entendemos como significativo investigar as concepções de educação eeducação ambiental presentes nos trabalhos de pesquisa e nos ensaios críticosapresentados no I Encontro de Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental (julho/2001).As questões que orientaram esta investigação podem ser assim sistematizadas:que concepções de educação e educação ambiental podem ser identificadas nostrabalhos apresentados no I EPEA? Que elementos ou indícios podem serevidenciados nos textos que permitem a identificação de tais concepções?Tanto a coleta de dados como a análise destes foram realizadas a partir dospressupostos da “análise de conteúdo”, privilegiando o desenvolvimento deanálises temáticas. A dimensão política do processo educativo,consubstanciada a partir das perspectivas de transformação social e daconstrução do ideal de cidadania, destaca-se nos textos analisados. Aconcretização de tal perspectiva, segundo os textos, deve considerar nasjustificativas, objetivos, diretrizes e/ou princípios o processo de participação, ainterdisciplinaridade, o desenvolvimento de valores, as relações local-global-local,o potencial de conflitos socioambientais, entre outros. Considerando o risco dapresença de concepções nos textos de pesquisas em educação ambiental que seaproximam de uma perspectiva “tradicional” ou “tecnicista”, associadas, às vezes, a um processo de instrumentalização da educação ambiental, assumindo, assim,uma perspectiva pragmática, entendemos ser necessário a busca da perspectivahumanizadora da educação.

Concepções de educação ambiental e suas abordagens políticas: análise de trabalhos dos Encontros de Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental (I, II e III EPEAs)

Este artigo analisa os trabalhos apresentados nos I, II e III Encontrosde Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental (EPEAs). Tem como corpusdocumental 61 trabalhos, definidos através de uma amostragem aleatóriaestratificada a partir das edições dos eventos. Seus objetivos são: ainvestigação do entendimento dado à dimensão política da educaçãoambiental, a caracterização das concepções de educação ambiental e aidentificação das abordagens políticas dessas concepções. Trata-se de umaanálise documental de abordagem qualitativa. A análise foi realizadaatravés das categorias: concepção emancipatória de educação, concepçãotransformadora da relação sociedade-natureza (que configuram umaconcepção transformadora de EA), concepção conservadora de educaçãoe concepção conservadora da relação sociedade-natureza (que definemuma concepção conservadora de EA). Sessenta e quatro por cento dostrabalhos foram compreendidos como concepção transformadora e os36% restantes foram considerados portadores de uma concepçãoconservadora. Dos 61 trabalhos, 18 relacionam educação ambiental com adimensão política.

Influencia do tempo de exposicao a obesidade induzida por dieta hiperlipidica sobre os colagenos tipo I e III miocardico

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Glucose, Cholesterol, Total Protein and Growth Factor Insulin-like Type I in Follicular Fluid of River Buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis)

In order to establish the concentrations of glucose, cholesterol, total protein and growth factor insulin-like type I (IGF-I) in the follicular fluid, 26 Murrah breed river buffaloes, between 45 and 70 days postpartum, empty, multiparous, with average live weight of 675 +/- 56 kg and average body condition of 3.5 points on a scale of 1-5, were used in this study. The fluid was collected from dominant follicles with diameters between 8 and 12 mm by OPU, and was not taken into account the stage of the estrous cycle. Using this technique, the wave of follicular development was synchronized six days prior to collection. Biochemical analysis was performed to glucose and cholesterol through the enzymatic colorimetric method using commercial kit glicose CHOLESTEROL GOD-PAP and CHOD-PAP (Kovalent), respectively. Determination of total protein was carried out by using total protein commercial kit (Kovalent) Biuret method, and the readings were performed using absorption spectrophotometry with visible light. Concentration of IGF-I was measured by Radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique using commercial IRMA Kit IGF-I (INMUNOTECH). Descriptive statistics were developed using the PROC MEANS procedure of SAS (2009). Concentration of glucose (4.0 +/- 0.75 mmol / L-1) and IGF-I (340 +/- 129.83 ng / mL (-1)) were higher than those reported by other authors in river buffaloes and cows, respectively. However, cholesterol levels (0.51 +/- 0.12 mmol / L (-1)) and total protein (58.4 +/- 4.43 g / L (-1)) behaved inferior to other studies in same species. The results indicated that there is relationship among the nutritional aspects, diameter of follicles aspirated and productive period in the concentration of biochemical indicators.

Effect of human whole saliva on the in vitro adhesion of Candida albicans to a denture base acrylic resin: a focus on collection and preparation of saliva samples

Objective In studies on Candida albicans adhesion to surfaces, diverse protocols have been used for collection and preparation of saliva samples. Thus, this study investigated whether variations in the centrifugation parameters and number of donors of saliva would influence the adhesion of C. albicans to a denture base resin. Methods Resin acrylic samples (n = 72) were made and then divided into four groups: (a) control – specimens were left without preconditioning in saliva; (b) three experimental groups, in which the specimens were preconditioned with saliva collected from 15 volunteers and centrifuged at 12 000 g for 5 min (G1); from 15 volunteers and centrifuged at 18 000 g for 30 min (G2); and from one volunteer and centrifuged at 12 000 g for 5 min (G3). Candida adhesion was evaluated by both the 2,3-bis(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulfophenyl)-5-[(phenylamino) carbonyl]-2H-tetrazolium hydroxide (XTT) reduction method and crystal violet staining. Data were analyzed by one-way analyses of variance (P = 0.05). Results For XTT reduction assay, groups G2, G3, and control were not significantly different, whereas group G1 showed significantly higher absorbance value than control. For crystal violet staining there were no significant differences among all groups. Conclusion Variations in the centrifugation parameters and number of donors of saliva may influence C. albicans adhesion to denture base resins.