DMFT index assessment and microbiological analysis of Streptococcus mutans in institutionalized patients with special needs

Aim: To assess the DMFT (D = decayed; M = missing; F = filled) index of institutionalized patients with mild and moderate physical and mental disabilities and to correlate it with the Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) counts in the supragingival bacterial biofilm. Methods: Dental examination of 28 patients aged 15 to 25 years was conducted to determine the DMFT index (number of decayed, missing and filled teeth). Supragingival plaque samples were collected from the buccal surfaces of all teeth. The samples were inoculated in SB20 medium and incubated at 37 °C for 48 hours. Spearman's correlation test was applied (p = 0.05) to evaluate the correlation between the DMFT index and the amount of S. mutans. Results: The mean DMFT recorded was 7.68 and a large mean number of S. mutans colony-forming units (cfu > 10 6) was found. No statistically significant correlation was found between the DMFT index and the number of S. mutans. Conclusions: Under the conditions of this study, no correlation was found between the DMFT index and the number of S. mutans cfu in institutionalized patients with mental retardation and physical disabilities.

Computational tool to support design of DAC Converter model AD7528 with the object code in XML

Based on literature review, electronic systems design employ largely top-down methodology. The top-down methodology is vital for success in the synthesis and implementation of electronic systems. In this context, this paper presents a new computational tool, named BD2XML, to support electronic systems design. From a block diagram system of mixed-signal is generated object code in XML markup language. XML language is interesting because it has great flexibility and readability. The BD2XML was developed with object-oriented paradigm. It was used the AD7528 converter modeled in MATLAB / Simulink as a case study. The MATLAB / Simulink was chosen as a target due to its wide dissemination in academia and industry. From this case study it is possible to demonstrate the functionality of the BD2XML and make it a reflection on the design challenges. Therefore, an automatic tool for electronic systems design reduces the time and costs of the design.

Port Security Measures: One Year after the Entry into Force of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code)

New Page 1This issue of the FALBulletin presents information relating to the implementation in Latin Americanand Caribbean countries of the International Ship and Port Facility SecurityCode (ISPS Code) of the International Maritime Organization (OMI), one yearafter its entry into force on 1 July 2004. Information is included on the charges associated with the securitymeasures, in the world and in Latin America, together with an analysis ofcompliance with the measures in a group of countries from the Southern Cone ofthe region. 

Context-sensitive analysis of x86 obfuscated executables

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Desempenho operacional e energético, segundo a norma OECD – code 2 de dois tratores agrícolas 4x2 TDA com motores de 132 kw em pista concreto e solo agrícola

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Encampment time : an anthropological analysis of the land occupations in Brazil

In this article the social trajectory of a land occupation participant, an encamped woman (Edesmaria) who is a member of an extended landless family, is closely examined in order to demonstrate the inner workings of what is called 'the world of land occupations' in Brazil. Through a native expression (encampment time), it is demonstrated that nowadays, for some individuals, involvement in land occupations and landless workers' movements represents not just an opportunity to claim a parcel of land, but, even more importantly, a chance for social mobility and recognition. In this sense, encampment time is a social code and, as such, it not only quantifies the amount of time spent in a given encampment, but it is also a marker of prestige and status as well as a principle that organises and orders social relations in the land occupation world.

Referência e code-switching: traços de singularidade na linguagem de uma criança bilíngue

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Analysis on the formation of a FRC by flux measurements and MHD simulations

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

Predicting Accurate and Actionable Static Analysis Warnings: An Experimental Approach

Static analysis tools report software defects that may or may not be detected by other verification methods. Two challenges complicating the adoption of these tools are spurious false positive warnings and legitimate warnings that are not acted on. This paper reports automated support to help address these challenges using logistic regression models that predict the foregoing types of warnings from signals in the warnings and implicated code. Because examining many potential signaling factors in large software development settings can be expensive, we use a screening methodology to quickly discard factors with low predictive power and cost-effectively build predictive models. Our empirical evaluation indicates that these models can achieve high accuracy in predicting accurate and actionable static analysis warnings, and suggests that the models are competitive with alternative models built without screening.

Analysis and Transformation of Pipe-like Web Mashups for End User Programmers

Mashups are becoming increasingly popular as end users are able to easily access, manipulate, and compose data from several web sources. To support end users, communities are forming around mashup development environments that facilitate sharing code and knowledge. We have observed, however, that end user mashups tend to suffer from several deficiencies, such as inoperable components or references to invalid data sources, and that those deficiencies are often propagated through the rampant reuse in these end user communities. In this work, we identify and specify ten code smells indicative of deficiencies we observed in a sample of 8,051 pipe-like web mashups developed by thousands of end users in the popular Yahoo! Pipes environment. We show through an empirical study that end users generally prefer pipes that lack those smells, and then present eleven specialized refactorings that we designed to target and remove the smells. Our refactorings reduce the complexity of pipes, increase their abstraction, update broken sources of data and dated components, and standardize pipes to fit the community development patterns. Our assessment on the sample of mashups shows that smells are present in 81% of the pipes, and that the proposed refactorings can reduce that number to 16%, illustrating the potential of refactoring to support thousands of end users developing pipe-like mashups.

Analysis, manufacture and characterization of Ni/Cu functionally graded structures

In this work, an experimental and numerical analysis and characterization of functionally graded structures (FGSs) is developed. Nickel (Ni) and copper (Cu) materials are used as basic materials in the numerical modeling and experimental characterization. For modeling, a MATLAB finite element code is developed, which allows simulation of harmonic and modal analysis considering the graded finite element formulation. For experimental characterization, Ni-Cu FGSs are manufactured by using spark plasma sintering technique. Hardness and Young's modulus are found by using microindentation and ultrasonic measurements, respectively. The effective gradation of Ni/Cu FGS is addressed by means of optical microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy and hardness testing. For the purpose of comparing modeling and experimental results, the hardness curve, along the gradation direction, is used for identifying the gradation profile; accordingly, the experimental hardness curve is used for approximating the Young's modulus variation and the graded finite element modeling is used for verification. For the first two resonance frequency values, a difference smaller than 1% between simulated and experimental results is obtained. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Optimal Code Set Selection and Security Issues in Spectral Phase-Encoded Time Spreading (SPECTS) OCDMA Systems

In this paper, we perform a thorough analysis of a spectral phase-encoded time spreading optical code division multiple access (SPECTS-OCDMA) system based on Walsh-Hadamard (W-H) codes aiming not only at finding optimal code-set selections but also at assessing its loss of security due to crosstalk. We prove that an inadequate choice of codes can make the crosstalk between active users to become large enough so as to cause the data from the user of interest to be detected by other user. The proposed algorithm for code optimization targets code sets that produce minimum bit error rate (BER) among all codes for a specific number of simultaneous users. This methodology allows us to find optimal code sets for any OCDMA system, regardless the code family used and the number of active users. This procedure is crucial for circumventing the unexpected lack of security due to crosstalk. We also show that a SPECTS-OCDMA system based on W-H 32(64) fundamentally limits the number of simultaneous users to 4(8) with no security violation due to crosstalk. More importantly, we prove that only a small fraction of the available code sets is actually immune to crosstalk with acceptable BER (<10(-9)) i.e., approximately 0.5% for W-H 32 with four simultaneous users, and about 1 x 10(-4)% for W-H 64 with eight simultaneous users.

Huckebein is part of a combinatorial repression code in the anterior blastoderm

The hierarchy of the segmentation cascade responsible for establishing the Drosophila body plan is composed by gap, pair-rule and segment polarity genes. However, no pair-rule stripes are formed in the anterior regions of the embryo. This lack of stripe formation, as well as other evidence from the literature that is further investigated here, led us to the hypothesis that anterior gap genes might be involved in a combinatorial mechanism responsible for repressing the cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) of hairy (h), even-skipped (eve), runt (run), and fushi-tarazu (ftz) anterior-most stripes. In this study, we investigated huckebein (hkb), which has a gap expression domain at the anterior tip of the embryo. Using genetic methods we were able to detect deviations from the wild-type patterns of the anterior-most pair-rule stripes in different genetic backgrounds, which were consistent with Hkb-mediated repression. Moreover, we developed an image processing tool that, for the most part, confirmed our assumptions. Using an hkb misexpression system, we further detected specific repression on anterior stripes. Furthermore, bioinformatics analysis predicted an increased significance of binding site clusters in the CRMs of h 1, eve 1, run 1 and ftz 1 when Hkb was incorporated in the analysis, indicating that Hkb plays a direct role in these CRMs. We further discuss that Hkb and Slp1, which is the other previously identified common repressor of anterior stripes, might participate in a combinatorial repression mechanism controlling stripe CRMs in the anterior parts of the embryo and define the borders of these anterior stripes. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Semi-supervised dimensionality reduction based on partial least squares for visual analysis of high dimensional data

Dimensionality reduction is employed for visual data analysis as a way to obtaining reduced spaces for high dimensional data or to mapping data directly into 2D or 3D spaces. Although techniques have evolved to improve data segregation on reduced or visual spaces, they have limited capabilities for adjusting the results according to user's knowledge. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to handling both dimensionality reduction and visualization of high dimensional data, taking into account user's input. It employs Partial Least Squares (PLS), a statistical tool to perform retrieval of latent spaces focusing on the discriminability of the data. The method employs a training set for building a highly precise model that can then be applied to a much larger data set very effectively. The reduced data set can be exhibited using various existing visualization techniques. The training data is important to code user's knowledge into the loop. However, this work also devises a strategy for calculating PLS reduced spaces when no training data is available. The approach produces increasingly precise visual mappings as the user feeds back his or her knowledge and is capable of working with small and unbalanced training sets.

New Optimization Algorithms for Structural Reliability Analysis

Solution of structural reliability problems by the First Order method require optimization algorithms to find the smallest distance between a limit state function and the origin of standard Gaussian space. The Hassofer-Lind-Rackwitz-Fiessler (HLRF) algorithm, developed specifically for this purpose, has been shown to be efficient but not robust, as it fails to converge for a significant number of problems. On the other hand, recent developments in general (augmented Lagrangian) optimization techniques have not been tested in aplication to structural reliability problems. In the present article, three new optimization algorithms for structural reliability analysis are presented. One algorithm is based on the HLRF, but uses a new differentiable merit function with Wolfe conditions to select step length in linear search. It is shown in the article that, under certain assumptions, the proposed algorithm generates a sequence that converges to the local minimizer of the problem. Two new augmented Lagrangian methods are also presented, which use quadratic penalties to solve nonlinear problems with equality constraints. Performance and robustness of the new algorithms is compared to the classic augmented Lagrangian method, to HLRF and to the improved HLRF (iHLRF) algorithms, in the solution of 25 benchmark problems from the literature. The new proposed HLRF algorithm is shown to be more robust than HLRF or iHLRF, and as efficient as the iHLRF algorithm. The two augmented Lagrangian methods proposed herein are shown to be more robust and more efficient than the classical augmented Lagrangian method.