Contribution of magnetic resonance in acute spinal cord trauma - case report

Acute spinal cord trauma is a common injury that occurs frequently in small animals. In order to acertain a prognosis of the lesion generated in the spinal cord, it is necessary to perform a complete neurological and physical examination, aided by complementary images. Magnetic resonance imaging may be advantageous over other types of images, because it can determine with greater definition the structural damage to the nervous tissue. The objective of this report was to demonstrate the contribution of magnetic resonance imaging in a case of acute spinal cord trauma in a dog.

Avaliação dos efeitos dos inseticidas malation e fipronil sobre a viabilidade e regeneração de girardia tigrina (Platyhelminthe, tricladida)

In this study were carried out toxicity tests and the evaluation of sub lethal effects of the insecticides malathion and fipronil, over the test system of Girardia tigrina, using for these analyses a great variety of methods. For evaluation of the lethal concentrations of the products, adult planarians were exposed to several different concentrations. All the tests were carried out in duplicate, maintained on the shelter of the light, on a temperature 24-26ºC and they had the duration of 96h, with observations at each 24h. The results were statically valued by the tests U of Mann- Whitney, Spearman-Karber, ANOVA and Pearson correlation. The effects over the system-test, in the different tested concentrations, varied in accordance with the time of exposition. The EC50 given by the test of Spearman-Karber was of 12,5mg/L for malathion and 13,4mg/L for fipronil. The evaluation of sub lethal effects was composed by analyses of the potential of regeneration; histological, for tissue damage evaluation; d; and the “comet assay”, for DNA damage detection. The specimens split up and exposed to the insecticides demonstrated, between other effects, retardation in development of the regenerative blastema. The histological evaluation has shown that exposed planarians to lower concentrations of the insecticides cause more significant damage against the tissues and some specific cell types. Through the comet assay, significant damages were noticed in the DNA in all the treatments, when compared with the control group. Such damages may result in reproduction and immunity alterations, which reduce the competitive efficiency and, consequently, the survival chances of these organisms.

Effects of chronic fluoride intake on the antioxidant systems of the liver and kidney in rats

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

Tiouréia no desenvolvimento de girinos de rã-touro e no desempenho de animais pós-metamórficos

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Avaliação da atividade da unidade epidermo-melânica e do dano dérmico no melasma

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

Structural FRF acquisition via electric impedance measurement applied to damage location

Continuing development of new materials makes systems lighter and stronger permitting more complex systems to provide more functionality and flexibility that demands a more effective evaluation of their structural health. Smart material technology has become an area of increasing interest in this field. The combination of smart materials and artificial neural networks can be used as an excellent tool for pattern recognition, turning their application adequate for monitoring and fault classification of equipment and structures. In order to identify the fault, the neural network must be trained using a set of solutions to its corresponding forward Variational problem. After the training process, the net can successfully solve the inverse variational problem in the context of monitoring and fault detection because of their pattern recognition and interpolation capabilities. The use of structural frequency response function is a fundamental portion of structural dynamic analysis, and it can be extracted from measured electric impedance through the electromechanical interaction of a piezoceramic and a structure. In this paper we use the FRF obtained by a mathematical model (FEM) in order to generate the training data for the neural networks, and the identification of damage can be done by measuring electric impedance, since suitable data normalization correlates FRF and electrical impedance.

Determination of the numerical parameters of a continuous damage model for the structural analysis of clay brick masonry

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

Automatic detection of thermal damage in grinding process by artificial neural network

Esse trabalho tem por objetivo o desenvolvimento de um sistema inteligente para detecção da queima no processo de retificação tangencial plana através da utilização de uma rede neural perceptron multi camadas, treinada para generalizar o processo e, conseqüentemente, obter o limiar de queima. em geral, a ocorrência da queima no processo de retificação pode ser detectada pelos parâmetros DPO e FKS. Porém esses parâmetros não são eficientes nas condições de usinagem usadas nesse trabalho. Os sinais de emissão acústica e potência elétrica do motor de acionamento do rebolo são variáveis de entrada e a variável de saída é a ocorrência da queima. No trabalho experimental, foram empregados um tipo de aço (ABNT 1045 temperado) e um tipo de rebolo denominado TARGA, modelo ART 3TG80.3 NVHB.

Structural alterations in the seminiferous tubules of rats treated with immunosuppressor tacrolimus

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Automation in fault detection using neural network and model updating

In this article, an implementation of structural health monitoring process automation based on vibration measurements is proposed. The work presents an alternative approach which intent is to exploit the capability of model updating techniques associated to neural networks to be used in a process of automation of fault detection. The updating procedure supplies a reliable model which permits to simulate any damage condition in order to establish direct correlation between faults and deviation in the response of the model. The ability of the neural networks to recognize, at known signature, changes in the actual data of a model in real time are explored to investigate changes of the actual operation conditions of the system. The learning of the network is performed using a compressed spectrum signal created for each specific type of fault. Different fault conditions for a frame structure are evaluated using simulated data as well as measured experimental data.

Time-domain analysis of piezoelectric impedance-based structural health monitoring using multilevel wavelet decomposition

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Assessment of cumulative damage by using ultrasonic C-scan on carbon fiber/epoxy composites under thermal cycling

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

Protective effects of lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus STAPF) essential oil on DNA damage and carcinogenesis in female Balb/C mice

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

Structural and Functional Studies of a Bothropic Myotoxin Complexed to Rosmarinic Acid: New Insights into Lys49-PLA(2) Inhibition

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

Structural, functional, and bioinformatics studies reveal a new snake venom homologue phospholipase A(2) class

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