Estudo da variação do limite de resistência à tração ao longo da bobina de vergalhão de alumínio 1350 AA

Therebar of aluminum 1350 AA produced by CBA are used inthe manufacture of wires and cables for electric power transmission, which marketshows increasingly favorableto aluminum due to itslow densityand high electrical conductivity, but to ensure that this materialmeets all specifications of projectsfor electricity transmission, it must have homogeneity in the chemicaland mechanicalproperties.One of the points of improvement in the process of rod production isreducing the high variation of the limitof tensile strengthalong the coils, therefore, this work seeks a better understanding of the factors that significantly influence the mechanical properties of rebar, specifically assessing the influence oftemperatureat the output of the coils, which can cause a recovery effect on the material andif thereare relevantdifferences between the two modes of rebar production: auto and manual.Samples of six coils have been specifically produced forthis study, which weresubsequently subjected to different annealing temperatures for one hour and ten minutes, similar to what occurs in the output of the coil from the machine. The tensile tests showed that aluminum 1350 AA is significantly influenced by temperature, whose behavior was very similar to that presented in the literature. It was found that the phenomenon of recovery occurred more significantly at high temperatures. Through the optical electron microscope Zeiss, 18 surface maps were made with 100x magnification for each sample in different conditions and the images were analyzed using entropy and fractal dimension, aiming to relate the condition of surface hardening on mechanical property of the samples in that condition. The results showed that these methods can be applied, provided they do not have any kind of imperfection on the surface, once they can influence the results. The study concluded that a more efficient cooling is required in ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Avaliação do efeito da gastrectomia na motilidade e no esvaziamento gástrico em ratos por biosusceptometria de corrente alternada

The study of gastrointestinal tract (GIT) functions is necessary due to the increasing number of pathologies associated with it. Directly influencing the quality of life, the gastrointestinal tract provides a number of parameters that, when analyzed, allow us to describe its dysfunctions. Thus, many techniques can be combined to obtain these properties related to the GIT. However, these techniques are often invasive, require surgery, catheter insertion, or to build a temporal model of these functions, require the sacrifice of animals in a series of data collection. The technique used in this study has the advantage of having a low operating cost, being free of ionizing radiation, non-invasive and is known as biosusceptometry AC (BAC), used to evaluate the properties of the GI tract by monitoring the position and concentration of materials magnetically marked. The sensor consists of two pairs of coils, one reference and one for detection. A fixed base line separates the sensing and reference coils, and also functions as support for the instrumentation. It is also important to note that the detection coils are arranged in a first order (subtraction) gradiometric way. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of gastrectomy in gastric emptying and gastrointestinal transit time of solid food in rats using a BAC system associated with magnetic markers. To realize this study was constructed a dedicated BAC sensor, built to analyze these GIT properties. Data acquisition was obtained by aligning the magnetic sensor with the stomach and colon of the animal at pre-determined intervals. Thus, when approaching the magnetic material of the sensor, the balance created between the two sides of the sensor is broken. This imbalance can be measured, digitized and acquired. Tracer was used as a ration magnetically marked with ferrite... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Biosusceptometria de corrente alternada para avaliação do trânsito gastrintestinal de alimentos líquidos em ratos

The gastrointestinal tract is the main route of nutrients absorption and drugs delivery. Is important to know the parameters related to the tract, like gastric emptying and gastrointestinal transit, in order to better understand the behavior of different kind of meals or drugs passing through the GIT. Many techniques are used to study these parameters, such as manometry, scintigraphy, phenol red, activated charcoal and carbon-13 reading. However, these methods use radiation, are invasive and require animal sacrifice. As an alternative proposal, the Alternate Current Biosusceptometry (ACB), a magnetic technique, has proved to be effective for these studies with small animals, in a noninvasive way, low cost, radiation free and avoiding the animal death. Associating the ACB to magnetic micro or nanoparticles used as tracers, it is possible to observe the meal behavior inside of the GIT. Focusing meanly on liquid meals digestion, this paper had the objective to evaluate the efficiency of the ACB technique in gastric emptying and gastrointestinal transit evaluation of liquid meals in rats. To perform the experiments, magnetic nanoparticles (ferrite, MgFe2O4) were used on a 1,5 ml solution introduced by gavage on similar weight and age rats. The sensor made by 2 pairs of coils, capable of generating and detecting magnetic fields, creates a field on the interest place and when this field is in contact with the marked meal, it changes, resulting on a variation of the measured voltage. The voltage variation is analyzed and is obtained a particle concentration on the interest region. The results showed that is possible to apply the ACB technique on the GIT evaluation of liquid particles digestion, gastric emptying and meal cecum arrival time curves were obtained and from that, is possible to observe a pattern of gastrointestinal transit. Both mean process time values were acquired, proving the technique capability of ...

Pirossequenciamento de alta cobertura da região hipervariável 1 do Vírus da Hepatite C

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Ineraction Model Between HRSV G-Protein and Flavonoids

Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are the leading cause of infant mortality in the world, and human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) is one of the main agents of ARI. One of the key targets of the adaptive host immune response is the RSV G-protein, which is responsible for attachment to the host cell. There is evidence that compounds such as flavonoids can inhibit viral infection in vitro. With this in mind, the main purpose of this study was to determine, using computational tools, the potential sites for interactions between G-protein and flavonoids. Results: Our study allowed the recognition of an hRSV G-protein model, as well as a model of the interaction with flavonoids. These models were composed, mainly, of -helix and random coil proteins. The docking process showed that molecular interactions are likely to occur. The flavonoid kaempferol-3-O-α-L-arabinopyranosil-(2 → 1)-α-L-apiofuranoside-7-O-α-L-rhamnopyranoside was selected as a candidate inhibitor. The main forces of the interaction were hydrophobic, hydrogen and electrostatic. Conclusions: The model of G-protein is consistent with literature expectations, since it was mostly composed of random coils (highly glycosylated sites) and -helices (lipid regions), which are common in transmembrane proteins. The docking analysis showed that flavonoids interact with G-protein in an important ectodomain region, addressing experimental studies to these sites. The determination of the G-protein structure is of great importance to elucidate the mechanism of viral infectivity, and the results obtained in this study will allow us to propose mechanisms of cellular recognition and to coordinate further experimental studies in order to discover effective inhibitors of attachment proteins.

Desenvolvimento de métodos analíticos de desreplicação por RMN, EM e análise multivariada do perfil metabolômico de espécies de Solanaceae com potencial biológico

Pós-graduação em Química - IQ

De novo transcriptome assembly for a non-model species, the blood-sucking bug Triatoma brasiliensis, a vector of Chagas disease

High throughput sequencing (HTS) provides new research opportunities for work on non-model organisms, such as differential expression studies between populations exposed to different environmental conditions. However, such transcriptomic studies first require the production of a reference assembly. The choice of sampling procedure, sequencing strategy and assembly workflow is crucial. To develop a reliable reference transcriptome for Triatoma brasiliensis, the major Chagas disease vector in Northeastern Brazil, different de novo assembly protocols were generated using various datasets and software. Both 454 and Illumina sequencing technologies were applied on RNA extracted from antennae and mouthparts from single or pooled individuals. The 454 library yielded 278 Mb. Fifteen Illumina libraries were constructed and yielded nearly 360 million RNA-seq single reads and 46 million RNA-seq paired-end reads for nearly 45 Gb. For the 454 reads, we used three assemblers, Newbler, CAP3 and/or MIRA and for the Illumina reads, the Trinity assembler. Ten assembly workflows were compared using these programs separately or in combination. To compare the assemblies obtained, quantitative and qualitative criteria were used, including contig length, N50, contig number and the percentage of chimeric contigs. Completeness of the assemblies was estimated using the CEGMA pipeline. The best assembly (57,657 contigs, completeness of 80 %, < 1 % chimeric contigs) was a hybrid assembly leading to recommend the use of (1) a single individual with large representation of biological tissues, (2) merging both long reads and short paired-end Illumina reads, (3) several assemblers in order to combine the specific advantages of each.

Aplicação do sistema de biosusceptometria AC para monitoramento de nanopartículas magnéticas na circulação sanguínea

Pós-graduação em Biologia Geral e Aplicada - IBB

Um novo descritor de formas baseado em estatísticas do espaço de Hough

Diversas atividades nos dias atuais podem ser beneficiadas pela da análise automatizada de imagens como o reconhecimento biométrico de pessoas, a busca de imagens por conteúdo e o diagnóstico médico. Dentre as principais características que podem ser analisadas em uma imagem a fim de obter informações sobre seu conteúdo encontra-se a forma de objetos e regiões da mesma. Neste trabalho propõe-se um novo descritor de formas denominado HTS (Hough Transform Statistics) o qual se baseia no espaço de Hough para representar e reconhecer objetos em imagens por suas formas. Os resultados obtidos sobre algumas bases de imagens públicas mostram que o HTS, além de apresentar altas taxas de acerto, é muito rápido. Discute-se também uma adaptação na etapa de extração de características do descritor a qual fez com que os resultados melhorassem bastante sem deixar o método muito mais lento.

Suppression of vibrations in a nonlinear half-car model using a magneto-rheological damper

The present work investigates the nonlinear response of a half-car model. The disturbances of the road are assumed to be sinusoidal. After constructing the bifurcation diagram, we use the 0-1 test to identify chaotic motions. The main objective of this study is to eliminate chaotic behavior of the chassis and reduce its vibrations. To accomplish this, a semi-active vehicle suspension control system, using magneto-rheological dampers, is proposed. The proposed semi-active control strategy consists of two nonlinear control laws: a feedforward control, and a feedback control. They are obtained by considering the SDRE (State Dependent Riccati Equation) control, where the control parameter is the voltage applied to the coils of the magneto-rheological dampers. Numerical results show that the proposed control method is effective in significantly reducing of the chassis vibration, increasing, therefore, passenger comfort.

Caracterização biofísica da interação entre a proteína M2-1 do Vírus Sincicial Respiratório Humano (HRSV) com quercetina

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Aplicação de projeto de experimento no processo de manufatura de uma bobina de alumínio

TProducts must follow specifications in order to attend demands requested. In terms of rolled aluminum, one of the most significant items for customers is coil thickness. This is because only a tiny variation in thickness might cause a serious problem on customer's manufacturing line. Thereby, this research aims to analyze through design of experiments which factors and how they affect the thickness of aluminum coils. The response variable of the experiment is the thickness of aluminum coil, tensile strenght and yield strenght are the factors of the experiment and trimmers machines were considered as blocking. Data were obtained through tensile tests. The result of the experiment states that, according to the analysis of variance (ANOVA), while there is significant difference between the two levels of tensile strength, there is not any difference between the two levels of yield strength and trimmers machines. The thickness of the aluminum coils with high values of tensile strength tends to be thicker when compared with low values of tensile strength

Myxobolus mississippiensis n. sp. (Myxosporea) from Gills of Lepomis macrochirus in Mississippi

Myxobolus mississippiensis n. sp. is described from gill lamellae of the bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) inhabiting the Pascagoula River System, Mississippi. Fresh spores measure 16.4-18.7 μm long, 3.9-6.2 μm wide, and 4.7-6.2 μm thick. Spore width to length ratio is 1:3.2. Polar capsules are 5.5-7.8 μm long and 1.5-2.3 μm wide, with 9-10 filament coils that when extruded measure 42.1 ± 4.2 μm. This parasite is unique among known species of Myxobolus,/i> in having spores that are lenticular in frontal view.

Aplicação de projeto de experimento no processo de manufatura de uma bobina de alumínio

TProducts must follow specifications in order to attend demands requested. In terms of rolled aluminum, one of the most significant items for customers is coil thickness. This is because only a tiny variation in thickness might cause a serious problem on customer's manufacturing line. Thereby, this research aims to analyze through design of experiments which factors and how they affect the thickness of aluminum coils. The response variable of the experiment is the thickness of aluminum coil, tensile strenght and yield strenght are the factors of the experiment and trimmers machines were considered as blocking. Data were obtained through tensile tests. The result of the experiment states that, according to the analysis of variance (ANOVA), while there is significant difference between the two levels of tensile strength, there is not any difference between the two levels of yield strength and trimmers machines. The thickness of the aluminum coils with high values of tensile strength tends to be thicker when compared with low values of tensile strength

CPAP Has No Effect on Clearance, Sputum Properties, or Expectorated Volume in Cystic Fibrosis

BACKGROUND: Positive expiratory pressure (PEP) is used for airway clearance in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Hypertonic saline (HTS) aerosol increases sputum expectoration volume and may improve respiratory secretion properties. CPAP may also be used to maintain airway patency and mobilize secretions. To evaluate if CPAP would increase the beneficial clearance effect of HTS in subjects with CF, we investigated the effects of CPAP alone and CPAP followed by HTS on sputum physical properties and expectoration volume in CF subjects. METHODS: In this crossover study, 15 CF subjects (mean age 19 y old) were randomized to interventions, 48 hours apart: directed coughs (control), CPAP at 10 cm H2O, HTS 7%, and both CPAP and HTS (CPAP+HTS). Sputum collection was performed at baseline and after interventions. Expectorated volume was determined and in vitro sputum properties were analyzed for contact angle and cough clearability. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between any treatment in arterial blood pressure, heart rate, or pulse oximetry, between the 2 time points. HTS and CPAP+HTS improved cough clearability by 50% (P = .001) and expectorated volume secretion by 530% (P = .001). However, there were no differences between control and CPAP on sputum contact angle, cough clearability, or volume of expectorated secretion. CONCLUSIONS: CPAP alone had no effect on mucus clearance, sputum properties, or expectorated volume, and did not potentiate the effect of HTS alone in CF subjects.