Characterization of soil parameters of two soils of Rio Grande do Sul in modeling the prediction of tractive effort

The interaction between the soil and tillage tool can be examined using different parameters for the soil and the tool. Among the soil parameters are the shear stress, cohesion, internal friction angle of the soil and the pre-compression stress. The tool parameters are mainly the tool geometry and depth of operation. Regarding to the soils of Rio Grande do Sul there are hardly any studies and evaluations of the parameters that have importance in the use of mathematical models to predict tensile loads. The objective was to obtain parameters related to the soils of Rio Grande do Sul, which are used in soil-tool analysis, more specifically on mathematical models that allow the calculation of tractive effort for symmetric and narrow tools. Two of the main soils of Rio Grande do Sul, an Albaqualf and a Paleudult were studied. Equations that relate the cohesion, internal friction angle of the soil, adhesion, soil-tool friction angle and pre-compression stress as a function of water content in the soil were obtained, leading to important information for use of mathematical models for tractive effort calculation.

Implementation of the trauma registry as a tool for quality improvement in trauma care in a brazilian hospital: the first 12 months

ABSTRACTObjective:to analyze the implementation of a trauma registry in a university teaching hospital delivering care under the unified health system (SUS), and its ability to identify points for improvement in the quality of care provided.Methods:the data collection group comprised students from medicine and nursing courses who were holders of FAPESP scholarships (technical training 1) or otherwise, overseen by the coordinators of the project. The itreg (ECO Sistemas-RJ/SBAIT) software was used as the database tool. Several quality "filters" were proposed to select those cases for review in the quality control process.Results:data for 1344 trauma patients were input to the itreg database between March and November 2014. Around 87.0% of cases were blunt trauma patients, 59.6% had RTS>7.0 and 67% ISS<9. Full records were available for 292 cases, which were selected for review in the quality program. The auditing filters most frequently registered were laparotomy four hours after admission and drainage of acute subdural hematomas four hours after admission. Several points for improvement were flagged, such as control of overtriage of patients, the need to reduce the number of negative imaging exams, the development of protocols for achieving central venous access, and management of major TBI.Conclusion: the trauma registry provides a clear picture of the points to be improved in trauma patient care, however, there are specific peculiarities for implementing this tool in the Brazilian milieu.

Construction and validation of a surgical skills assessment tool for general surgery residency program

Objective: To develop and validate an instrument for measuring the acquisition of technical skills in conducting operations of increasing difficulty for use in General Surgery Residency (GSR) programs. Methods: we built a surgical skills assessment tool containing 11 operations in increasing levels of difficulty. For instrument validation we used the face validaity method. Through an electronic survey tool (Survey MonKey(r)) we sent a questionnaire to Full and Emeritus members of the Brazilian College of Surgeons - CBC - all bearers of the CBC Specialist Title. Results: Of the 307 questionnaires sent we received 100 responses. For the analysis of the data collected we used the Cronbach's alpha test. We observed that, in general, the overall alpha presented with values near or greater than 0.70, meaning good consistency to assess their points of interest. Conclusion: The evaluation instrument built was validated and can be used as a method of assessment of technical skill acquisition in the General Surgery Residency programs in Brazil.

Sheep production as a Senecio spp. control tool

Since poisoning by Senecio spp. is one of the main causes of cattle death in southern Brazil, control of these plants is a priority for the local livestock production. After the pasture has been mowed, grazing by 16 sheep was efficient for controlling Senecio brasiliensis and Senecio madagascariensis populations in a 5.5-hectare area that had long been severely infested with these species. A total of 28,629 plants among S. brasiliensis (flower-of-souls, 10,122) and S.madagascariensis (fireweed, 18,507) were almost completely eliminated in a two-year period. The number of sheep was kept at 3.0 stock units/ha, but a variable number of cattle were temporarily stocked according to pasture availability. The major sanitary practice applied to the sheep was anthelmintic administration. Liver biopsies taken from sheep and cattle before and after experimental period didn't reveal any change associable with seneciosis. The performance levels of the sheep were comparable to those observed in flocks managed under traditional extensive grazing systems in southern Brazil.

Bronchoalveolar lavage as a tool for evaluation of cellular alteration during Aelurostrongylus abstrusus infection in cats

Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is a procedure that retrieves cells and other elements from the lungs for evaluation, which helps in the diagnosis of pulmonary diseases. The aim of this study was to perform this procedure for cellular analysis of BAL fluid alterations during experimental infection with Aelurostrongylus abstrusus in cats. Fourteen cats were individually inoculated with 800 third stage larvae of A. abstrusus and five non-infected cats lined as a control group. The BAL procedure was performed through the use of an endotracheal tube on the nineteen cats with a mean age of 18 months, on 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, 180 and 270 days after infection. Absolute cell counts in the infected cats revealed that alveolar macrophages and eosinophils were the predominant cells following infection. This study shows that the technique allows us to retrieve cells and first stage larvae what provides information about the inflammatory process caused by aelurostrongylosis.

Critical aspects on the behavior of material from the mechanical tool-workpiece interaction in single point diamond turning

Some material aspects such as grain size, purity and anisotropy exert an important influence on surface quality, especially in single point diamond turning. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss some critical factors that can limit the accuracy of ultraprecision machining of non-ferrous metals and to identify the effects of them on the cutting mechanism with single point diamond tools. This will be carried out through observations of machined surfaces and chips produced using optical and scanning electron microscopy. Solutions to reduce the influence of some of these limiting factors related with the mechanism of generation of mirror-like surfaces will be discussed.

Investigation on diamond turning of silicon crystal - generation mechanism of surface cut with worn tool

This paper discusses the effect of tool wear on surface finish in single-point diamond turning of single crystal silicon. The morphology and topography of the machined surface clearly show the type of cutting edge wear reproduced onto the cutting grooves. Scanning electron microscopy is used in order to correlate the cutting edge damage and microtopography features observed through atomic force microscopy. The possible wear mechanisms affecting tool performance and surface generation during cutting are also discussed. The zero degree rake angle single point diamond tool presented small nicks on the cutting edge. The negative rake angle tools presented more a type of crater wear on the rake face. No wear was detected on flank face of the diamond tools.

Influence of Cutting Conditions on Tool Life, Tool Wear and Surface Finish in the Face Milling Process

The main goal of this work is to study the influence of cutting conditions - cutting speed, feed velocity and feed per tooth - on tool life and surface finish of the workpiece in the face milling of flat surfaces. Aiming to achieve this goal, several milling experiments were carried out with different cutting speeds, feed velocities and feeds per tooth. In the first phase of the experiments, cutting speed was varied without varying feed velocity, which caused a variation in feed per tooth. In the second phase of the experiments, cutting speed and feed velocity were varied in such a way that feed per tooth was kept constant. Tool flank wear and surface roughness of the workpiece were measured as cutting time elapsed. The main conclusions of this work are that a) cutting speed has a strong influence on tool life, regardless of whether feed velocity or feed per tooth varies and b) an increase in surface roughness of the workpiece is not closely related to an increase in wear of the primary cutting edge.

Hot tool temperature analysis though infrared images

Textile manufacture occupies a prominent place in the national economy. Because of its importance researches have been made on the development of new materials, equipment and methods used in the production process. The cutting of textiles starts in the basic stage, to be followed by the process of the making of clothes and other articles. In the hot cutting of fabric, one of the variables of great importance in the control of the process is the contact temperature between the tool and the fabric. This work presents a technique for the measurement of the temperature based on the processing of infrared images. With this purpose, it was developed a system which is composed of an infrared camera, a framegrabber PC board and a software which analyses the punctual temperature in the cut area enabling the operator to achieve the necessary control of other variables involved in the process.

Perspectives for using light quality knowledge as an advanced ecophysiological weed management tool

The current knowledge of light quality effects on plant morphogenesis and development represents a new era of understanding on how plant communities perceive and adjust to available resources. The most important consequences of light quality cues, often mediated by decreasing in red far-red ratios with respect to the spectral composition of incident sunlight radiation, affecting weed-crop interaction are the increased plant height and shoot to root ratio in anticipation of competition by light quantity, water or nutrients. Although the concepts related to light quality have been extensively studied and several basic process of this phenomenon are well known, little applications of photomorphogenic signaling currently are related to agricultural problems or weed management. The objectives of this review are to describe how light quality change can be a triggering factor of interspecific interference responses, to analyze how this phenomenon can be used to predict weed interference, to reevaluate the critical periods of interference concept, and to discuss its potential contribution towards developing more weed competitive crop varieties. Knowledge on light quality responses involved in plant sensing of interspecific competition could be used to identify red/far-red threshold values, indicating when weed control should be started. Light quality alterations by weeds can affect grain crop development mainly in high yielding fields. Unlike the traditional concept or the critical period of competition, light quality mediated interference implies that the critical period for weed control could start before the effects of direct resource (water, nutrients and available light) limitation actually occur. The variability in light quality responses among crop genotypes and the identification of mutants insensitive to light quality effects indicate that this characteristic can be selected or modified to develop cultivars with enhanced interspecific interference ability. Knowledge on light quality-elicited responses represents a new possibility to understand the underlying biology of interspecific interference, and could be used in the development of new weed management technologies.

Reflectance indices as a diagnostic tool for weed control performed by multipurpose equipment in precision agriculture

Several tools of precision agriculture have been developed for specific uses. However, this specificity may hinder the implementation of precision agriculture due to an increasing in costs and operational complexity. The use of vegetation index sensors which are traditionally developed for crop fertilization, for site-specific weed management can provide multiple utilizations of these sensors and result in the optimization of precision agriculture. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between reflectance indices of weeds obtained by the GreenSeekerTM sensor and conventional parameters used for weed interference quantification. Two experiments were conducted with soybean and corn by establishing a gradient of weed interference through the use of pre- and post-emergence herbicides. The weed quantification was evaluated by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the ratio of red to near infrared (Red/NIR) obtained using the GreenSeekerTM sensor, the visual weed control, the weed dry matter, and digital photographs, which supplied information about the leaf area coverage proportions of weed and straw. The weed leaf coverage obtained using digital photography was highly associated with the NDVI (r = 0.78) and the Red/NIR (r = -0.74). The weed dry matter also positively correlated with the NDVI obtained in 1 m linear (r = 0.66). The results indicated that the GreenSeekerTM sensor originally used for crop fertilization could also be used to obtain reflectance indices in the area between rows of crops to support decision-making programs for weed control.

Glyphosate as a tool to produce shikimic acid in plants

Oseltamivir phosphate is a potent viral inhibitor produced from shikimic acid extracted from seeds of Ilicium verum, the most important natural source. With the site of action 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSP), glyphosate is the only compound capable of inhibiting its activity with the consequent accumulation of shikimic acid in plants. Corn and soybean plants were sprayed with reduced rates of glyphosate (0.0 to 230.4 g a.i. ha¹) and shikimic acid content in the dry mass was determined by HPLC 3, 7 and 10 days after application. Results showed shikimic acid accumulation in dry mass with increases of up to 969% in corn and 33,000% on soybeans, with peak concentrations 3 days after treatment (DAT). Industrial feasibility for shikimic acid production, combined with favorable climatic conditions for growing corn and soybean in virtually all over Brazil, favor the use of reduced rates of glyphosate in shikimic acid biosynthesis, with potential for use as an inducer in exploration of alternative sources for production of oseltamivir phosphate with low environmental impact.

Calculation of breed direct and maternal genetic fractions and breed specific direct and maternal heterozygosity for crossbreeding data

Teaching, research, and herd breeding applications may require calculation of breed additive contributions for direct and maternal genetic effects and fractions of heterozygosity associated with breed specific direct and maternal heterosis effects. These coefficients can be obtained from the first NB rows of a pseudo numerator relationship matrix where the first NB rows represent fractional contributions by breed to each animal or group representing a specific breed cross. The table begins with an NB x NB identity matrix representing pure breeds. Initial animals or representative crosses must be purebreds or two-breed crosses. Parents of initial purebreds are represented by the corresponding column and initial two-breed cross progeny by the two corresponding columns of the identity matrix. After that, usual rules are used to calculate the NB column entries corresponding to breeds for each animal. The NB entries are fractions of genes expected to be contributed by each of the pure breeds and correspond to the breed additive direct fractions. Entries in the column corresponding to the dam represent breed additive maternal fractions. Breed specific direct heterozygosity coefficients are entries of an NB x NB matrix formed by the outer product of the two NB by 1 columns associated with sire and dam of the animal. One minus sum of the diagonals represents total direct heterozygosity. Similarly, the NB x NB matrix formed by the outer product of columns associated with sire of dam and dam of dam contains breed specific maternal heterozygosity coefficients. These steps can be programmed to create covariates to merge with data. If X represents these coefficients for all unique breed crosses, then the reduced row echelon form function of MATLAB or SAS can be used on X to determine estimable functions of additive breed direct and maternal effects and breed specific direct and maternal heterosis effects

Radioactive fucose as a tool for studying glycoprotein secretion

The efficiency and reliability of radioactive fucose as a specific label for newly synthesized glycoproteins were investigated. Young adult male rabbits were injected intravitreally with [3H]-fucose, [3H]-galactose, [3H]-mannose, N-acetyl-[3H]-glucosamine or N-acetyl-[3H]-mannosamine, and killed 40 h after injection. In another series of experiments rabbits were injected with either [3H]-fucose or several tritiated amino acids and the specific activity of the vitreous proteins was determined. Vitreous samples were also processed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and histological sections of retina, ciliary body and lens (the eye components around the vitreous body) were processed for radioautography. The specific activity (counts per minute per microgram of protein) of the glycoproteins labeled with [3H]-fucose was always much higher than that of the proteins labeled with any of the other monosaccharides or any of the amino acids. There was a good correlation between the specific activity of the proteins labeled by any of the above precursors and the density of the vitreous protein bands detected by fluorography. This was also true for the silver grain density on the radioautographs of the histological sections of retina, ciliary body and lens. The contribution of radioautography (after [3H]-fucose administration) to the elucidation of the biogenesis of lysosomal and membrane glycoproteins and to the determination of the intracellular process of protein secretion was reviewed. Radioactive fucose is the precursor of choice for studying glycoprotein secretion because it is specific, efficient and practical for this purpose

McFarland nephelometer as a simple method to estimate the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction using Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a research tool

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been widely investigated for the diagnosis of tuberculosis. However, before this technique is applied on clinical samples, it needs to be well standardized. We describe the use of McFarland nephelometer, a very simple approach to determine microorganism concentration in solution, for PCR standardization and DNA quantitation, using Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a model. Tuberculosis is an extremely important disease for the public health system in developing countries and, with the advent of AIDS, it has also become an important public health problem in developed countries. Using Mycobacterium tuberculosis as a research model, we were able to detect 3 M. tuberculosis genomes using the McFarland nephelometer to assess micobacterial concentration. We have shown here that McFarland nephelometer is an easy and reliable procedure to determine PCR sensitivity at lower costs.