Farmacovigilância no Brasil: A relação entre polimorfismo de fármacos, efetividade e segurança dos medicamentos

In spite of the stated Brazilian policy on medicines that their quality, effectiveness and safety should be ensured at reasonable cost, hospitals in the ANVISA Surveillance Network have been receiving notifications of technical complaints, adverse reactions and suspected therapeutic ineffectiveness (STI) of medicines. The purpose of this study was to identify the medicines notified for suspicion of therapeutic ineffectiveness, at a university hospital participating in the national Surveillance Network, and to investigate the existence of polymorphs of any of the drugs involved, by examining the literature. There were 31 notifications of STI in a period of 18 months, concerning 11 different drugs, all of which were 'similar' drugs (neither original nor licensed by originator); five of these could contain polymorphs, according to the literature. However, this does not mean that the other drugs could not contain some unknown polymorphs, more studies being needed on polymorphism, especially in the cases of reported therapeutic ineffectiveness. Therefore, tests of polymorphism should be made part of the routine quality control of the raw materials during the development of medicines and in the studies of pharmaceutical equivalence to 'reference' medicines (innovative brands). The stability test should also involve a study of polymorphism, in order to confirm the solid state stability of the drug. All these measures will assure the effectiveness of medicines, since the reproducibility in the quality of pharmaceutical products could be monitored, as well as the equivalence of each production batch with the batch selected to determine the bioequivalence with the reference brand.

O canal de retorno na TV digital e as estratégias para universalização do acesso a Internet

Pós-graduação em Televisão Digital: Informação e Conhecimento - FAAC

Difusão de objetos de aprendizagem multiplataforma por transmissão de televisão digital: um estudo de viabilidade técnica e pedagógica

Pós-graduação em Televisão Digital: Informação e Conhecimento - FAAC

Modernization and new services of the Brazilian active control network

The Brazilian Network for Continuous Monitoring of GNSS - RBMC is a national network of continuously operating reference GNSS stations. Since its establishment in December of 1996, it has been playing an essential role for the maintenance and user access of the fundamental geodetic frame in the country. In order to provide better services for RBMC, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE and the National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform - INCRA are both partners involved in the National Geospatial Framework Project - PIGN. This paper provides an overview of the recent modernization phases the RBMC network has undergone highlighting its future steps. These steps involve the installation of new equipment, provide real time data from a group of core stations and compute real-time DGPS corrections, based on CDGPS (The real-time Canada-Wide DGPS Service) (The Real-Time Canada-Wide DGPS Service. http://www.cdgps.com/ 2009a). In addition to this, a post-mission Precise Point Positioning (PPP) service has been established based on the current Geodetic Survey Division of NRCan (CSRS-PPP) service. This service is operational since April 2009 and is in large use in the country. All activities mentioned before are based on a cooperation signed at the end of 2004 with the University of New Brunswick, supported by the Canadian International Development Agency and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency. The Geodetic Survey Division of NRCan is also participating in this modernization effort under the same project. This infrastructure of 66 GNSS stations, the real time, post processing services and the potentiality of providing Wide Area DGPS corrections in the future show that the RBMC system is comparable to those available in USA and Europe. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.

An emergy-based evaluation of a reverse logistics network for steel recycling

Efficient implementation of recycling networks requires appropriate logistical structures for managing the reverse flow of materials from users to producers. The steel sheet distributor studied had established a protocol for scrap recovery with the steel plant and its customers. The company invested in producing containers, hiring a specialized labor force and in purchasing trucks for container transportation to implement the logistics network for recycling. That network interconnected the company with two kinds of customers: the ones returning scrap and the ones who preferred to continue business-as-usual. The logistical network was analyzed using emergy synthesis, and the data obtained were used to evaluate and compare the system's environmental costs and benefits from the perspective of the distributor and the steel plant operator. The use of emergy ternary diagrams provided a way to assess recycle strategies to compare the relative economic and environmental benefits of the logistical network implemented. The minimum quantity of scrap that the distributor must recover to improve environmental benefits was determined allowing decision on whether it is worth keeping the system running. The new assessment method proposed also may help policy-makers to create strategies to reward or incentive users of reverse logistics, and help to establish regulations, by decreasing taxes or stimulating innovation, for effectively implement the National Policy on Solid Waste. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transmission network expansion planning for the Colombian electrical system: Connecting the Ituango hydroelectric power plant

The hydroelectric power plant Hidroltuango represents a major expansion for the Colombian electrical system (with a total capacity of 2400 MW). This paper analyzes the possible interconnections and investments involved in connecting Hidroltuango, in order to strengthen the Colombian national transmission system. A Mixed Binary Linear Programming (MBLP) model was used to solve the Multistage Transmission Network Expansion Planning (MTEP) problem of the Colombian electrical system, taking the N-1 safety criterion into account. The N-1 safety criterion indicates that the transmission system must be expanded so that the system will continue to operate properly if an outage in a system element (within a pre-defined set of contingencies) occurs. The use of a MBLP model guaranteed the convergence with existing classical optimization methods and the optimal solution for the MTEP using commercial solvers. Multiple scenarios for generation and demand were used to consider uncertainties within these parameters. The model was implemented using the algebraic modeling language AMPL and solved using the commercial solver CPLEX. The proposed model was then applied to the Colombian electrical system using the planning horizon of 2018-2025. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.