Modelagem sísmica e inversão na presença de anisotropia

A necessidade da adoção de modelos elásticos anisotrópicos, no contexto da sísmica de exploração, vem crescendo com o advento de novas técnicas de aquisição de dados como VSP, walkway VSP, tomografia poço a poço e levantamentos sísmicos com grande afastamento. Meios anisotrópicos, no contexto da sísmica de exploração, são modelos efetivos para explicar a propagação de ondas através de meios que apresentam padrões de heterogeneidade em escala muito menor que o comprimento de onda das ondas sísmicas. Particularmente, estes modelos são muito úteis para explicar o dado sísmico mais robusto que são as medidas de tempo de trânsito. Neste trabalho, são investigados aspectos da propagação de ondas, traçado de raios e inversão de tempos de trânsito em meios anisotrópicos. É estudada a propagação de ondas SH em meios anisotrópicos estratificados na situação mais geral onde estas ondas podem ocorrer, ou seja, em meios monoclínicos com um plano vertical de simetria especular. É mostrado que o campo de ondas SH refletido a partir de um semi-espaço estratificado, não apresenta qualquer informação sobre a possível presença de anisotropia em subsuperfície. São apresentados métodos simples e eficientes para o traçado de raios em 3D através de meios anisotrópicos estratificados, baseados no princípio de Fermat. Estes métodos constituem o primeiro passo para o desenvolvimento de algoritmos de inversão de tempos de trânsito para meios anisotrópicos em 3D, a partir de dados de VSP e walkaway VSP. Esta abordagem é promissora para determinação de modelos de velocidade, que são necessários para migração de dados sísmicos 3D na presença de anisotropia. É efetuada a análise da inversão tomográfica não linear, para meios estratificados transversalmente isotrópicos com um eixo de simetria vertical(TIV). As limitações dos dados de tempo de trânsito de eventos qP para determinação das constantes elásticas, são estabelecidas e caracterizados os efeitos da falta de cobertura angular completa na inversão tomográfica. Um algoritmo de inversão foi desenvolvido e avaliado em dados sintéticos. A aplicação do algoritmo a dados reais demonstra a consistência de meios TIV. Esta abordagem é útil para casos onde há informação a priori sobre a estratificação quase plana das formações e onde os próprios dados do levantamento poço a poço apresentam um alto grau de simetria especular em relação a um plano vertical. Também pode ser útil em interpretações preliminares, onde a estimativa de um meio estratificado, serve como modelo de fundo para se efetuar análises mais detalhadas, por exemplo, como um modelo de velocidades anisotrópico para migração, ou como um modelo de calibração para análises de AVO.

Inversão conjunta de dados gravimétricos magnéticos e resistivo

Apesar das grandes vantagens decorrentes da interpretação conjunta de dados geofísicos, a aplicação da inversão simultânea destes dados tem sido pouco estudada, principalmente a nível de simulação. Este trabalho foi desenvolvido com intuito de cobrir parte desta deficiência. Neste trabalho, foi utilizado o método dos mínimos quadrados para comparar os resultados obtidos a partir de: a) inversão dos grupos de dados gravimétricos, magnéticos e resistivos tomados separadamente; b) inversão simultânea destes grupos de dados combinados dois a dois; c) inversão simultânea dos três grupos de dados. O trabalho é desenvolvido a partir de dados teóricos onde são simuladas diversas situações geológicas. A comparação dos resultados é efetuada a partir das estimativas dos parâmetros obtidos por cada inversão, pelos desvios padrões de cada parâmetro (inversão gravimetria-magnetometria para o ruído Gaussiano) e pela redução da ambiguidade, manifestada pela dependência das estimativas em relação a aproximação inicial dos parâmetros. Na maioria dos casos estudados as inversões conjuntas dos dados combinados dois a dois apresentam resultados bem superiores àqueles obtidos usando-se apenas um dos grupos de dados isoladamente, seja nas estimativas dos parâmetros, seja na redução da ambiguidade. Por sua vez, a inversão conjunta dos três grupos de dados apresentam resultados semelhantes às inversões dos grupos de dados combinados dois a dois, contudo em alguns casos a inversão conjunta dos três grupos de dados é a única totalmente independente da aproximação inicial. Dados gravimétricos e magnéticos de duas anomalias reais foram invertidos, produzindo sempre curvas estimadas bem ajustadas aos valores observados.

Fazendo retratos e experimentos: a performance da linguagem em Lygia Bojunga

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Miniaturization in Otothyris Myers, 1927 (Loricariidae: Hypoptopomatinae)

Muitas espécies de peixes de água doce são consideradas miniaturas, entretanto, sua identificação é frequentemente baseada apenas no critério arbitrário que é seu reduzido tamanho corporal. Apesar de algumas espécies de Otothyris terem sido propostas como miniaturas, informações acerca do processo de miniaturização no gênero e suas consequências são escassas. Aqui detalhamos eventos de perda, fusão, modificações em muitos ossos, sistema laterossensorial e no cérebro, que juntos evidenciam a miniaturização em todas as espécies do gênero. Nossos resultados podem ser úteis na identificação de outras espécies miniaturas dentro de Loricariidae.

Matrizes híbridas siloxano-poliéter incorporadas com argila montmorilonita para liberação controlada de fármaco

Pós-graduação em Química - IQ

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Caracterização da liga do sistema binário Ti-15Mo para aplicações biomedicas

As they have excellent mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility, much research has been conducted with respect to biomedical applications of titanium alloys. This work aims to study the experimental system binary alloy Ti-15Mo, in the raw state of fusion and heat treatment after homogenization, solubilization and calcination (simulating conditions employed for nanotube growth) targeting biomedical applications. Samples were obtained by casting the components in an electric arc furnace with inert atmosphere of argon. After obtaining the alloy, it was heat treated at three different heat treatments, namely homogenizing, calcining and simulation solubilization. The phases present were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy and microhardness testing

O imaginário sertanejo no Romance d‘A Pedra do Reino e o príncipe do sangue do vai-e-volta: memória e invenção em uma imagística quadernesca

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

State of the art on animal embryonic chimeras

Embryonic chimerism is generally used in basic research and in vivo diagnosis of undifferentiated embryonic stem cells (ESC), mostly using mice embryos, although there have been reports in the literature on using rat, rabbit, sheep, chicken, primate, bovine, goat and pig embryos. Several techniques can currently be used to produce chimeric embryos, including microinjection, co-culture with ESC, fusion and aggregation. Although microinjection is the most commonly used method in mice, the mere aggregation of embryos with ESC may result in viable chimeras and be as efficient as microinjection. In mice, this chimerism technique has been shown to have the advantage of aggregating embryos in different stages of development with different ploidy, in addition to using ESC in the tetraploid complementation assay. Compared to other techniques for producing chimeras, the aggregation technique is a cheaper, faster and easier methodology to be performed. Moreover, aggregation can be simplified by chemically removing the zona pellucida with pronase or acidic Tyrode’s solution and be enhanced by using the Well of the Well culture system in combination with adhesion molecules, such as phytohemagglutinin. The most commonly used stages for chimerism by aggregation are those that precede the full compaction of the morula. In these stages, embryos have low-tension adherent junctions at the tangential point between two blastomeres. During the embryonic development of mice, the inner cell mass differentiates into epiblast and hypoblast. These layers will originate the fetal tissues and a portion of the extraembryonic tissues (yolk sac, allantois and amnion), whereas the trophectoderm (TE) gives rise to the chorion. A functional TE is essential for the complex molecular communications that occur between the embryo and the uterus. Embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer, such as commercial cattle clones or endangered species, are subject to large fetal and neonatal losses. Hence embryo complementation with heterologous TE could be of assistance to decrease these losses and might as well assist development of high-value embryos in other approaches.

O objeto transicional pode ser uma pessoa? teoria e clínica

The objective of this work is to answer the question posed in the title, based on the texts of D. W. Winnicott. To this effect we addressed the origins of the concept of transitional object in the author’s work, the chronology of its first appearances, direct references to the topic and a discussion of a clinical case. Winnicott rarely referred to a person as being another person’s transitional object, and when he did so, he situated this experience in the field of pathology, and when referring to it, used such terms as “comforter object”, “fetish object” and “regressive object”. In contrast, the concept of transitional object is linked to an experience indicative of mental health, of transition between fusion and mother-baby separation, and of the personal and symbolic use of objects of the sensory field. Maintaining this conceptual specificity enables us to discriminate nuances in the evolution of the use of material objects by the child, and helps to guide anamnesis, diagnosis and the therapeutic process.

Questing mass dimension 1 spinor fields

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

SIS: a program to generate draft genome sequence scaffolds for prokaryotes

Background: Decreasing costs of DNA sequencing have made prokaryotic draft genome sequences increasingly common. A contig scaffold is an ordering of contigs in the correct orientation. A scaffold can help genome comparisons and guide gap closure efforts. One popular technique for obtaining contig scaffolds is to map contigs onto a reference genome. However, rearrangements that may exist between the query and reference genomes may result in incorrect scaffolds, if these rearrangements are not taken into account. Large-scale inversions are common rearrangement events in prokaryotic genomes. Even in draft genomes it is possible to detect the presence of inversions given sufficient sequencing coverage and a sufficiently close reference genome. Results: We present a linear-time algorithm that can generate a set of contig scaffolds for a draft genome sequence represented in contigs given a reference genome. The algorithm is aimed at prokaryotic genomes and relies on the presence of matching sequence patterns between the query and reference genomes that can be interpreted as the result of large-scale inversions; we call these patterns inversion signatures. Our algorithm is capable of correctly generating a scaffold if at least one member of every inversion signature pair is present in contigs and no inversion signatures have been overwritten in evolution. The algorithm is also capable of generating scaffolds in the presence of any kind of inversion, even though in this general case there is no guarantee that all scaffolds in the scaffold set will be correct. We compare the performance of SIS, the program that implements the algorithm, to seven other scaffold-generating programs. The results of our tests show that SIS has overall better performance. Conclusions: SIS is a new easy-to-use tool to generate contig scaffolds, available both as stand-alone and as a web server. The good performance of SIS in our tests adds evidence that large-scale inversions are widespread in prokaryotic genomes.

Effect of cations/polycations on the efficiency of formation of a hybrid bilayer membrane that mimics the inner mitochondrial membrane

We aim in this study to characterize the effect of cations and polycations on the formation of hybrid bilayer membranes (HBMs), especially those that mimic the inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM), with a proper composition of phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and cardiolipin (CL) adsorbed on an alkanethiol monolayer. HBMs are versatile membrane mimetics that show promising results in sensor technology. Its formation depends on the fusion of vesicles on hydrophobic surfaces, a process that is not well understood at the molecular level. Our results showed to which extend and in which condition the presence of cations and polycations facilitate the formation of HBMs. The required time for lipid layer formation was reduced several times and the lipid layer reaches the expected thickness of 19.5 +/- 1.8 angstrom, in contrast to only 2 +/- 1.5 angstrom usually observed in the absence of cations. In the presence of specific concentrations of spermine and Ca2+ the amount of adsorbed phospholipids on the thiol layer increased nearly 70% compared to that observed when Na+ was used at concentrations 10 times higher. Divalent cations and polycations adsorb specifically on the lipid headgroups destabilizing the hydration forces, facilitating the process of vesicle fusion and formation of lipid monolayers. The concepts and conditions described in the manuscript will certainly help the development of the field of membrane biosensors. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Transfer with Apoptotic Bovine Fibroblasts: Can Programmed Cell Death Be Reprogrammed?

Cell death by apoptosis is considered to be irreversible. However, reports have indicated that its reversibility is possible if the cells have not yet reached the "point of no return.'' In order to add new information about this topic, we used cells at different moments of apoptotic process as nuclear donors in somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in order to test if programmed cell death can be reversed. Adult bovine fibroblasts were treated with 10 mu M of staurosporine (STP) for 3 h and analyzed for phosphatidylserine externalization (Annexin assay) and presence of active caspase-9. Annexin-positive (Anx +) and Caspase-9-positive (Casp-9 +) cells were isolated by FACS and immediately transferred into enucleated in vitro matured bovine oocytes. After STP treatment, 89.9% of cells were Anx + (4.6% in control cells; p < 0.01) and 24.9% were Casp-9 + (2.4% in control cells; p < 0.01). Fusion and cleavage were not affected by the use apoptotic cells (p > 0.05). Also, the use of Anx + cells did not affect blastocyst production compared to control (26.4% vs. 22.9%, respectively; p > 0.05). However, blastocyst formation was affected by the use of Casp-9 + cells (12.3%; p < 0.05). These findings contribute to the idea of that apoptosis is reversible only at early stages. Additionally, we hypothesize that the "point of no return'' for apoptosis may be located around activation of Caspase-9.

Morphologic micro–computed tomography analysis of mandibular premolars with three root canals

Introduction: This study aimed to describe the anatomy of mandibular premolars with type IX canal configuration by using micro–computed tomography. Methods: Mandibular premolars with radicular grooves (n = 105) were scanned, and 16 teeth with type IX configuration were selected. Number and location of canals, distances between anatomic landmarks, occurrence of apical delta, root canal fusion, and furcation canals, as well as 2-dimensional (area, perimeter, roundness, major and minor diameters) and 3-dimensional (volume, surface area, and structuremodel index) analysis were performed. Data were statistically compared by using analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis tests (a = 0.05). Results: Overall, specimens had 1 root with a main canal that divided into mesiobuccal, distobuccal, and lingual canals at the furcation level. Mean length of the teeth was 22.9 2.06 mm, and the configuration of the pulp chamber was mostly triangle-shaped. Mean distances from the furcation to the apex and cementoenamel junction were 9.14 2.07 and 5.59 2.19 mm, respectively. Apical delta, root canal fusion, and furcation canals were present in 4, 5, and 10 specimens, respectively. No statistical differences were found in the 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional analyses between root canals (P > .05). Conclusions: Type IX configuration of the root canal system was found in 16 of 105 mandibular premolars with radicular grooves. Most of the specimens had a triangle-shaped pulp chamber. Within this anatomic configuration, complexities of the root canal systems such as the presence of furcation canals, fusion of canals, oval-shaped canals in the apical third, small orifices at the pulp chamber level, and apical delta were also observed