Common snook fed in alternate and continuous regimens with diet supplemented with Bacillus subtilis probiotic

The objective of this work was to evaluate the addition of Bacillus subtilis probiotic to the feed of common snook (Centropomus undecimalis) fingerlings, in alternate and continuous regimens. Six hundred and sixty fish, with average length of 5.90±0.88 cm and weight of 1.92±0.28 g, were stocked in 12 cages of 1.0 m3, with 55 fish each. The experimental design was completely randomized, with three treatments and four replicates. The treatments consisted of diet with the addition of probiotic, provided in alternate regimen for 7 days and in continuous regimen; besides a control without probiotic in the feed. Zootechnical performance, body composition, immune response, and blood parameters were evaluated. No significant differences were observed in zootechnical performance indexes and in body composition of fish treated with probiotic, when compared to the control. Fish from the alternate regimen showed an increment in respiratory burst and a lower total erythrocyte count than fish from the continuous regimen and the control. Fish from the continuous regimen did not differ from those of the control. The addition of Bacillus subtilis does not increase growth rates of common snook fingerlings; however, it has an immunostimulant action when supplied in alternate regimen.

Limestone particle sizes and lighting regimens on egg and bone quality of laying hens

Abstract:The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of limestone particle sizes in the diet and of lighting regimes on the egg and bone quality and on the performance of commercial laying hens. Three hundred Hissex White layers, at 18 weeks of age, were distributed in a completely randomized design, in a 5×2 factorial arrangement (coarse limestone in the diet at 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%; with or without artificial light), with five replicates of six birds. No significant interaction was observed between particle sizes and lighting regime for the evaluated parameters. There was no significant effect of coarse limestone level in the diet on the performance and egg quality of hens; however, bone deformity (3.23 to 4.01 mm), strength (5.19 to 6.70 kgf cm-2), and mineral matter (51.09 to 59.61%) improved as the proportion of coarse limestone increased. For lighting regime, the treatment with artificial light yielded higher Haugh unit values (87.17 vs. 85.54) than that with natural light only. Greater limestone particles improve bone quality of laying hens, and the use of artificial light can benefit the albumen quality of the eggs.

Utilização de uma interface do tipo "particle beam" para a obtenção de espectros de massas de compostos pouco voláteis em solução

Due to source contamination and wearing of instrument components problems caused by the direct insertion probe technique, a new way of introduction of low volatile compounds into mass spectrometer was tested. This new scheme comprises the introduction of the low volatile compounds solutions via a six port valve connected to a particle beam interface. Solutions of isatin were injected into this system and the best results were obtained with CH2Cl2, CH3OH and CH3CN. The solution inlet system has shown to be advantageous over the conventional way of direct insertion probe introduction.

Filmes de titânio-silício preparados por "spin" e "dip-coating"

The conditions for the preparation of luminescent materials, consisting of Eu3+ ions entrapped in a titanium matrix, in the forma of a thin film, using the sol-gel process, are described. The films were obtained from sols prepared with TEOS and TEOT, in the presence of acetylacetone as the hidrolysis-retarding agent, using the dip-coating and spin-coating techniques. The influence of these techniques on the films based on titanium and silicon are presented. The Eu3+ was used as a luminescent probe. The films have been characterized by luminescence, reflection and transmittance. The thickness of the films could be related to the preparation procedure. Transparent thin films have been prepared by dip-coating technique.

"Spin-Off" acadêmico: criando riquezas a partir de conhecimento e pesquisa

Technology companies created from University research are known as "Academic Spin-Off" (ASO). These innovative companies play an important role for the technological, economical and social development of a country. This work discusses some aspects of ASO companies and their importance to Universities. It is also presented a fictitious history of Prof. João, a chemical researcher who will create an ASO company from his academic research work illustrating the basic steps involved in this process.

Design and evaluation of a continuous flow, integrated nebulizer-hydride generator for flame atomic absorption spectrometry

An evaluation of the performance of a continuous flow hydride generator-nebulizer for flame atomic absorption spectrometry was carried out. Optimization of nebulizer gas flow rate, sample acid concentration, sample and tetrahydroborate uptake rates and reductant concentration, on the As and Se absorbance signals was carried out. A hydrogen-argon flame was used. An improvement of the analytical sensitivity relative to the conventional bead nebulizer used in flame AA was obtained (2 (As) and 4.8 (Se) µg L-1). Detection limits (3σb) of 1 (As) and 1.3 (Se) µg L-1 were obtained. Accuracy of the method was checked by analyzing an oyster tissue reference material.

Aerosol particle size distributions at a traffic exposed site and an urban background location in Oporto, Portugal

Aerosol size distributions from 6 to 700 nm were measured simultaneously at an urban background site and a roadside station in Oporto. The particle number concentration was higher at the traffic exposed site, where up to 90% of the size spectrum was dominated by the nucleation mode. Larger aerosol mode diameters were observed in the urban background site possibly due to the coagulation processes or uptake of gases during transport. Factor analysis has shown that road traffic and the neighbour stationary sources localised upwind affect the urban area thought intra-regional pollutant transport.

Combined application of continuous wavelet transform-zero crossing technique in the simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of perindopril and indapamid in tablets

Signal processing methods based on the combined use of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and zero-crossing technique were applied to the simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of perindopril (PER) and indapamide (IND) in tablets. These signal processing methods do not require any priory separation step. Initially, various wavelet families were tested to identify the optimum signal processing giving the best recovery results. From this procedure, the Haar and Biorthogonal1.5 continuous wavelet transform (HAAR-CWT and BIOR1.5-CWT, respectively) were found suitable for the analysis of the related compounds. After transformation of the absorbance vectors by using HAAR-CWT and BIOR1.5-CWT, the CWT-coefficients were drawn as a graph versus wavelength and then the HAAR-CWT and BIOR1.5-CWT spectra were obtained. Calibration graphs for PER and IND were obtained by measuring the CWT amplitudes at 231.1 and 291.0 nm in the HAAR-CWT spectra and at 228.5 and 246.8 nm in BIOR1.5-CWT spectra, respectively. In order to compare the performance of HAAR-CWT and BIOR1.5-CWT approaches, derivative spectrophotometric (DS) method and HPLC as comparison methods, were applied to the PER-IND samples. In this DS method, first derivative absorbance values at 221.6 for PER and 282.7 nm for IND were used to obtain the calibration graphs. The validation of the CWT and DS signal processing methods was carried out by using the recovery study and standard addition technique. In the following step, these methods were successfully applied to the commercial tablets containing PER and IND compounds and good accuracy and precision were reported for the experimental results obtained by all proposed signal processing methods.

Time-series forecasting of pollutant concentration levels using particle swarm optimization and artificial neural networks

This study evaluates the application of an intelligent hybrid system for time-series forecasting of atmospheric pollutant concentration levels. The proposed method consists of an artificial neural network combined with a particle swarm optimization algorithm. The method not only searches relevant time lags for the correct characterization of the time series, but also determines the best neural network architecture. An experimental analysis is performed using four real time series and the results are shown in terms of six performance measures. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed methodology achieves a fair prediction of the presented pollutant time series by using compact networks.

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectral components of spin-labeled lipids in saturated phospholipid bilayers: effect of cholesterol

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy was used to study the main structural accommodations of spin labels in bilayers of saturated phosphatidylcholines with acyl chain lengths ranging from 16 to 22 carbon atoms. EPR spectra allowed the identification of two distinct spectral components in thermodynamic equilibrium at temperatures below and above the main phase transition. An accurate analysis of EPR spectra, using two fitting programs, enabled determination of the thermodynamic profile for these major probe accommodations. Focusing the analysis on two-component EPR spectra of a spin-labeled lipid, the influence of 40 mol % cholesterol in DPPC was studied.

Effect of continuous growing of resistant soybean genotypes on Meloidogyne arenaria race 1 reproduction

Even though resistance is the most promising tactic for root-knot nematode management on soybean (Glycine max), virulent biotypes may occur and be selected on specific resistant plant genotypes. In the present study, reproduction rate of Meloidogyne arenaria race 1 increased after four sequences of continuous culture of the parasite on resistant soybean genotypes.

Effect of particle morphology on the mechanical and thermo-mechanical behavior of polymer composites

Fiber reinforced polymer composites have been used in many applications, such as in automobile, aerospace and naval industries, due basically to their high strength-to-weight and modulus-to-weight, among other properties. Even though particles are usually not able to lead to the level of reinforcement of fibers, particle reinforced polymer composites have been proposed for many new applications due to their low cost, easy fabrication and isotropic properties. In this work, polymer composites were prepared by incorporating glass particles of different morphologies on poly(aryl sulfones) matrices. Particles with aspect ratios equal to 1, 2.5 and 10 were used. The prepared composites were characterized using electron microscopy and thermal analysis. Mechanical properties of the composites were evaluated using a four-point bending test. The thermo-mechanical behavior of the obtained composites was also investigated. The results showed that the morphology of the particles alter significantly the mechanical properties of composites. Particles with larger values of aspect ratio led to large elastic modulus but low levels of strain at failure. This result was explained by modeling the thermo-mechanical behavior of the composites using a viscoelastic model. Parameters of the model, obtained from a Cole-Cole type of plot, demonstrated that interactions at the polymer-reinforcing agent interface were higher for composites with large aspect ratio particles. Higher levels of interactions at interfaces can lead to higher degrees of stress transfer and, consequently, to composites with large elastic modulus, as experimentally observed.

Fluid dynamic modelling and simulation of circulating fluidized bed reactors: importance of the interface turbulence transfer

The main objective of this work is to analyze the importance of the gas-solid interface transfer of the kinetic energy of the turbulent motion on the accuracy of prediction of the fluid dynamic of Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) reactors. CFB reactors are used in a variety of industrial applications related to combustion, incineration and catalytic cracking. In this work a two-dimensional fluid dynamic model for gas-particle flow has been used to compute the porosity, the pressure, and the velocity fields of both phases in 2-D axisymmetrical cylindrical co-ordinates. The fluid dynamic model is based on the two fluid model approach in which both phases are considered to be continuous and fully interpenetrating. CFB processes are essentially turbulent. The model of effective stress on each phase is that of a Newtonian fluid, where the effective gas viscosity was calculated from the standard k-epsilon turbulence model and the transport coefficients of the particulate phase were calculated from the kinetic theory of granular flow (KTGF). This work shows that the turbulence transfer between the phases is very important for a better representation of the fluid dynamics of CFB reactors, especially for systems with internal recirculation and high gradients of particle concentration. Two systems with different characteristics were analyzed. The results were compared with experimental data available in the literature. The results were obtained by using a computer code developed by the authors. The finite volume method with collocated grid, the hybrid interpolation scheme, the false time step strategy and SIMPLEC (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations - Consistent) algorithm were used to obtain the numerical solution.

Estimates of genetic and phenotypic parameters in a segregant population of rice irrigated by continuous flooding

Estimates of genetic and phenotypic parameters were obtained by using data from families of a recurrent selection program in rice. An experiment using population CNA-IRAT 4ME/1/1 was conducted at two locations (Lambari and Cambuquira) in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. At Lambari, families S0:2 and S0:3 were assessed during crop seasons 1992/1993 and 1993/1994, respectively. In the Cambuquira trial, only S0:3 families were tested in 1993/1994. The experimental design was a 10 x 10 lattice with three replications. The following traits were assessed: grain yield (GY), mean number of days to flowering (FL), plant height (PH), and the incidence of neck blast (NB) caused by Pyricularia grisea and grain staining (GS) caused by Drechslera oryzae. This population proved to be promising for recurrent selection, as it had high average yield and genetic variability. Heritability estimates obtained using variance components were generally greater than estimates of realized heritability, and heritability obtained by parent-offspring regression