Concepções infinitesimais em um curso de cálculo

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

Effects of isoflavone on the learning and memory of women in menopause: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

Hormone decline is common to all women during aging and, associated with other factors, leads to cognitive impairment. Its replacement enhances cognitive performance, but not all women present a clinical and family or personal history that justifies its use, mainly women with a history of cancer. The aim of this study was to determine whether a daily oral dose of 80 mg of isoflavone extract for 4 months can produce benefits in women with low hormone levels, contributing to improvement in cognitive aspects. The sample comprised 50- to 65-year-old women whose menstruation had ceased at least 1 year before and who had not undergone hormone replacement. The volunteers were allocated to two groups of 19 individuals each, i.e., isoflavone and placebo. There was a weak correlation between menopause duration and low performance in the capacity to manipulate information (central executive). We observed an increase in the capacity to integrate information in the group treated with isoflavone, but no improvement in the capacity to form new memories. We did not observe differences between groups in terms of signs and symptoms suggestive of depression according to the Geriatric Depression Scale. Our results point to a possible beneficial effect of isoflavone on some abilities of the central executive. These effects could also contribute to minimizing the impact of memory impairment. Further research based on controlled clinical trials is necessary to reach consistent conclusions.

Research on staphylococcus spp in biofilm formations in water pipes and sinsibility to antibiotics

Water from dental equipment presents risks for surgeon-dentists as well as for patients because it might work as a means of dissemination/ transmission of microoganisms. The objective of this study was to verify the quality of the water used in dental equipment by means of microbiological analysis, accomplishing the count of Staphylococcus spp.There have been collected, 160 samples of water from reserviors, taps used for hand washing, air-water syringes, and high-speed handpieces, in 40 dental offices in the city of Barretos, São Paulo. The rules concerning bacteriotogicaI analysis in cfu/mL from Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater have been followed. The analysis of the results has made it possible to verify that out of the total of samples, 28% did not meet the standards of potability established by the American Dental Association: Regarding the origin of analyzed S. aureus., the most contaminated sites were high-speed handpicces in private offices (761%) and in, ental care plan offices (71%), followed by air-water syringe in dental care plan offices (64%). For S. epidermitis samples, the most contaminated sites were high-speed handpieces in SUS (Brazilian Government Health System) dental offices (22%) and in dental care plan offices (14%) The most contaminated sites were dental offices that saw Patients under dental care plans, Concerning tested antibiotics, the ones that presented better results as to sensibility to strain S. epidermidis were vancomycin and ciprofloxacin (100%) and, as to sensibility to strain S. aureus, it was ciprofloxacin (97%).

Chemical properties of different peats depending on origin and analytical method

The chemical properties of 12 different peats have been analyzed by methods from VDLUFA (German Association of Agricultural Analysis and Research Institutes) and EN (European Committee for Standardization, Technical Committee 223: Soil improvers and growing media). The analyses of pH (CaCl 2), contents of salts (H 2O), nutrients (CAT), and Na and Cl (H 2O) were carried out by VDLUFA methods, while those of pH (H 2O), EC (H 2O), nutrients (CAT), Na (CAT and H 2O) and Cl (H 2O) according to EN. Ten milled or sod white peats and two dredged frozen black peats of different degrees of decomposition were used. All of them contained high amounts of Mg, while black peats were additionally high in N, Fe and Zn. The pH-values were about the same for all peats. N- and Mn-contents depended most on peat origin. Analytical values of both CAT-methods were in the same range. Extraction with H 2O (EN) as compared to CAT (EN) resulted in considerably lower values.

Research on Candida dubliniensis in a Brazilian yeast collection obtained from cardiac transplant, tuberculosis, and HIV-positive patients, and evaluation of phenotypic tests using agar screening methods

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

Clinical research on new drugs (Phase I). Profile of scientific publications: data from the pre-clinical phase and bioethical aspects

OBJETIVO: Traçar o perfil das publicações científicas de fase I e procurar saber se a publicação oferece dados da fase pré-clínica com ênfase nos aspectos bioéticos. MÉTODOS: Foram analisados 61 artigos científicos publicados no ano de 2007, que relatam pesquisas envolvendo seres humanos com novos fármacos, medicamentos ou vacinas em fase I. Foi elaborado um roteiro para coleta de dados, com o qual fosse possível analisar e avaliar os artigos científicos. O roteiro contempla itens referentes à fase pré-clínica (associados à fase clínica) e itens referentes às características da amostra. RESULTADOS: Nos artigos analisados, a maioria das pesquisas foi realizada nos EUA. Devido ao grande número de publicações destinadas às doenças oncológicas a maioria delas foi realizada com voluntários doentes. Quanto às informações sobre a fase pré-clínica presente nas publicações de fase I observamos que são pobres ou inexistentes. Mesmo que os autores julguem a pesquisa fase I como promissora e sugiram estudos futuros de fase II, ao leitor não é possível este mesmo julgamento pela escassez de informações da fase pré-clínica. CONCLUSÃO: O perfil das publicações levanta dados que merecem reflexão e análise para melhor avaliação do que está ocorrendo com as publicações de fase I.

Topical 1% Nalbuphine on corneal sensivity and epitheilization after experimental lamellar keratectomy in rabbits

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

Methodological contributions towards the study of health care production: lessons from a research study on barriers and access in mental health

This article presents methodological contributions and a conceptual innovation for thinking about the production of health care, stemming from a study on access and barriers in mental health carried out in the municipality of Campinas (São Paulo, Brazil). The study used a cartographic approach and, after an initial identification of the most complex cases (on the part of the teams of workers), adopted the users as guides to explore the different levels of production of their lives and to evaluate the possibility of forming a network of existential connections that produce life as a fundamental analyzer of access or barriers to care.

Research on photovoltaics: Review, trends and perspectives

This paper presents a briefly review, some trends and perspectives in the field of Photovoltaic energy conversion, which is considered to be the most important renewable energy source in few years, in the coming decades. The power electronics plays a fundamental role in this process, developing systems each times more competitive, efficient, reliable, and also reducing costs and reducing the payback time. Some trends are visible, which are the use of Silicon Carbide devices in PV inverters, the use of integrated inverter structures, the integration of power converters into the PV module or the use of few PV series connection, the development of thinner and more efficient solar cells. Moreover, the discussion about the necessity of MPPT and anti-island schemes are presented, mainly considering the expected growth of grid-tied applications. © 2011 IEEE.

Effects of liver S9 enzymes on somalargine and solasodine cytotoxicity and mass spectrometric fragmentation

The steroidal glycoalkaloid solamargine and its parent aglycone solasodine, isolated from Solanum palinacanthum, were studied in vitro for cytotoxicity and biotransformation by the hepatic S9 fraction as the metabolic activating system. The MTT uptake assay was used to determine viability after 24 h in RAW 264.7 mouse macrophage-like and SiHa cells exposed to various concentrations of the alkaloids in the presence and absence of the hepatic S9 microsomal fraction. The dose-response curves were established for solamargine and solasodine in the presence and absence of external metabolizing system. From these data, the cytotoxic index (CI50) was calculated with mean values of 7.2 and 13.6 μg/mL for Raw cells and 8.6 and 26.0 μg/mL for SiHa cells, respectively. Mass spectrometry was performed to compare the fragmentation patterns of the alkaloids to predict metabolism by the S9 fraction. The mass spectra demonstrated a distinct fragmentation patterns for solamargine and solasodine after the addition of the S9 fraction. In the present study, we demonstrate that the cytotoxic effect of solamargine and solasodine and their metabolites prepared in vitro by biotransformation with the S9 fraction are comparable. These findings suggest that the metabolic activation system S9 fraction may fail to suppress the cytotoxicity of these alkaloids. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Image segmentation through combined methods: watershed transform, unsupervised distance learning and normalized cut

Research on image processing has shown that combining segmentation methods may lead to a solid approach to extract semantic information from different sort of images. Within this context, the Normalized Cut (NCut) is usually used as a final partitioning tool for graphs modeled in some chosen method. This work explores the Watershed Transform as a modeling tool, using different criteria of the hierarchical Watershed to convert an image into an adjacency graph. The Watershed is combined with an unsupervised distance learning step that redistributes the graph weights and redefines the Similarity matrix, before the final segmentation step using NCut. Adopting the Berkeley Segmentation Data Set and Benchmark as a background, our goal is to compare the results obtained for this method with previous work to validate its performance.