Setor escuro do universo: uma análise termodinâmica

Significant observational effort has been directed to unveiling the nature of the so-called dark energy. However, given the large number of theoretical possibilities, it is possible that this a task cannot be based only on observational data. In this thesis we investigate the dark energy via a thermodynamics approach, i.e., we discuss some thermodynamic properties of this energy component assuming a general time-dependent equation-of-state (EoS) parameter w(a) = w0 + waf(a), where w0 and wa are constants and f(a) may assume different forms. We show that very restrictive bounds can be placed on the w0 - wa space when current observational data are combined with the thermodynamic constraints derived. Moreover, we include a non-zero chemical potential μ and a varying EoS parameter of the type ω(a) = ω0 + F(a), therefore more general, in this thermodynamical description. We derive generalized expressions for the entropy density and chemical potential, noting that the dark energy temperature T and μ evolve in the same way in the course of the cosmic expansion. The positiveness of entropy S is used to impose thermodynamic bounds on the EoS parameter ω(a). In particular, we find that a phantom-like behavior ω(a) < −1 is allowed only when the chemical potential is a negative quantity (μ < 0). Thermodynamically speaking, a complete treatment has been proposed, when we address the interaction between matter and energy dark

Modelos cosmológicos com velocidade da luz variável

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

Utilização de bagaço de caju desidratado e complexo enzimático na ração para codornas japonesas em postura

Given the significant share of food costs of poultry production, it is necessary to use strategies and techniques to maximize the utilization and biological value of the components of the diets, keeping constant or improving animal performance. In this context, seeking partial substitution of corn and the best use of the constituents of the diet, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of inclusion of cashew pomace dehydrated (BCD) and enzyme complex (EC) in the diet on performance and quality eggs of Japanese quails. A total of 200 Japanese quail at 87 days of age, in 25 cages in a completely randomized design in a factorial 2 x 2 + 1 (two levels of cashew bagasse x two levels of enzymes) + control diet without cashew bagasse totaling five treatments with five replicates of eight birds each repetition. The experiment lasted 84 days, divided into four periods of 21 days. The treatments consisted of T1-Ration Control, T2-ration with 7.5% without EC BCD, T3-ration with 7.5% BCD with CE, T4-Ration with 15% BCD without EC and T5-Feed with 15% of BCD with EC. The enzyme complex (EC) is used fermentation product of Aspergillus niger, and cashew bagasse was obtained from the juice industry, passed through drying and crushing process for producing the bran. The performance and egg quality of quails, and performance variables: feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio per dozen eggs (CAKDZ) and egg mass (CAMO), egg production (OP% bird / day), average egg weight (PMO) and egg mass (MO), and variables were egg quality, specific gravity (SG), Haugh unit (HU), yolk index, and the relationships between components eggs (%albumen,% yolk and %shell). Data were analyzed with the Statistical SAEG (2007). The 7.5 and 15% of cashew bagasse, independent of the enzyme complex decreased feed intake and improved the average egg weight. The two levels with the addition of EC showed significant differences for feed conversion by egg mass. The 7.5 with the addition of enzyme complex obtained the lowest average feed conversion per dozen eggs. The inclusion of up to 15% of cashew bagasse dehydrated with or without addition of enzyme complex in the diet of Japanese quails not interfere in the internal and external quality of eggs. The 7.5 and 15% BCD without added enzyme complex gave better means for specific gravity. Under conditions in which the experiment was conducted, it can be stated that the inclusion of up to 15% of cashew bagasse dehydrated with added enzyme complex feeding quail is economically viable, with the level of 7.5% with the addition of complex enzyme presented the best economic indices

Uso de produto à base de enzima e levedura na dieta de bovinos: digestibilidade dos nutrientes e desempenho em confinamento

Objetivou-se, com este trabalho, avaliar os efeitos da adição de diferentes níveis de enzima mais levedura na dieta de bovinos sobre a digestibilidade aparente dos nutrientes e o desempenho em confinamento, utilizando-se 18 animais machos, mestiços, de origem leiteira, com peso vivo (PV) médio de 190±10 kg e 12 meses de idade, e 27 animais da raça Guzerá com PV médio de 325 kg e idade média de 27 meses. Os níveis de enzima mais levedura foram zero (controle), 5 g de enzima (E) mais 5 g de levedura (L) e 10 g de E mais 5 g de L por animal por dia. Todos os animais receberam a mesma dieta, constituída de 65% de silagem (50% de milho:50% de sorgo) e 35% de concentrado composto de milho (24,6%), farelo de algodão (7,4%), uréia (1,2%), sal mineralizado (0,54%) e calcário (0,86%). Esta dieta apresentava 12,4% de PB; 10,1 MJEM/kg MS e 41,1% de FDN. A adição de enzima mais levedura não alterou o consumo de MS (3,31% do PV ou 126,6 g/kg PV0,75), e CDA da MS (63,0%), PB (68,2%), EE (83,3%), CHOT (61,3%), FDN (47,2%), FDA (43,8%) e valor de NDT (62,8%). O GMD e o CMS diminuíram de forma quadrática e a CA alimentar piorou linearmente, em função dos dias de confinamento. O fornecimento de enzima mais levedura para bovinos de corte não traz benefícios nutricionais ou de desempenho.

Secagem de misturas de polpa de frutas tropicais em leito de jorro

Drying of fruit pulps in spouted beds of inert particles has been indicated as a viable technique to produce fruit powders. Most of the processes employed to produce dried fruit pulps and juices, such as Foam Mat, encapsulation by co-crystallization and spray drying utilize adjuvant and additives (such as thickeners, coating materials, emulsifiers, acidulants, flavors and dyes), which is not always desirable. The fruit pulp composition exerts an important effect on the fruit powder production using a spouted bed. In the study by Medeiros (2001) it was concluded that lipids, starch and pectin contents play an important role on the process performance, enhancing the powder production; however, the drying of fruit pulps containing high content of reducing sugars (glucose and fructose) is practically unviable. This work has the objective of expanding the studies on drying of fruit pulps in spouted bed with aid of adjuvant (lipids, starch and pectin) aiming to enhance the dryer performance without jeopardizing the sensorial quality of the product. The optimum composition obtained by Medeiros (2001) was the basis for preparing the mixtures of pulps. The mixture formulations included pulps of mango (Mangifera indica), umbu (Spondias tuberosa) and red mombin (Spondia purpurea) with addition of cornstarch, pectin and lipids. Different products were used as lipids source: olive and Brazil nut oils, coconut milk, heavy milk, powder of palm fat and palm olein. First of all, experiments were conducted to define the best formulation of the fruit pulps mixture. This definition was based on the drying performance obtained for each mixture and on the sensorial characteristics of the dry powder. The mixture formulations were submitted to drying at fixed operating conditions of drying and atomizing air flow rate, load of inert particles, temperature and flow rate of the mixture. The best results were obtained with the compositions having powder of palm fat and palm olein in terms of the drying performance and sensorial analysis. Physical and physicochemical characteristics were determined for the dry powders obtained from the mixtures formulations. Solubility and reconstitution time as well as the properties of the product after reconstitution were also evaluated. According to these analyses, the powder from the mixtures formulations presented similar characteristics and compatible quality to those produced in other types of dryers. Considering that the palm olein is produced in Brazil and that it has been used in the food industry substituting the palm fat powder, further studies on drying performance were conducted with the composition that included the palm olein. A complete factorial design of experiments 23, with three repetitions at the central point was conducted to evaluate the effects of the air temperature, feeding flow rate and intermittence time on the responses related to the process performance (powder collection efficiency, material retained in the bed and angle of repose of the inert particles after the process) and to the product quality (mean moisture content, loss of vitamin C and solubility). Powder production was uniform for the majority of the experiments and the higher efficiency with lower retention in the bed (59.2% and 1.8g, respectively) were obtained for the air temperature of 80°C, mixture feed rate of 5ml/min in intervals of 10 min. The statistical analysis of the results showed that the process variables had individual or combined significant influences on the powder collection efficiency, material retention in the bed, powder moisture content and loss of vitamin C. At the experimental ranges of this work, the angle of repose and solubility were not influenced by the operating variables. From the results of the experimental design, statistical models were obtained for the powder moisture content and loss of vitamin C

Obtenção de sistemas microemulsionados e estudo de simulação por dinâmica molecular de sistemas micelares objetivando a veiculação de produtos naturais bioativos

Among the new drugs launched into the market since 1980, up to 30% of them belong to the class of natural products or they have semisynthetic origin. Between 40-70% of the new chemical entities (or lead compounds) possess poor water solubility, which may impair their commercial use. An alternative for administration of poorly water-soluble drugs is their vehiculation into drug delivery systems like micelles, microemulsions, nanoparticles, liposomes, and cyclodextrin systems. In this work, microemulsion-based drug delivery systems were obtained using pharmaceutically acceptable components: a mixture Tween 80 and Span 20 in ratio 3:1 as surfactant, isopropyl mirystate or oleic acid as oil, bidistilled water, and ethanol, in some formulations, as cosurfactants. Self-Microemulsifying Drug Delivery Systems (SMEDDS) were also obtained using propylene glycol or sorbitol as cosurfactant. All formulations were characterized for rheological behavior, droplet size and electrical conductivity. The bioactive natural product trans-dehydrocrotonin, as well some extracts and fractions from Croton cajucara Benth (Euphorbiaceae), Anacardium occidentale L. (Anacardiaceae) e Phyllanthus amarus Schum. & Thonn. (Euphorbiaceae) specimens, were satisfactorily solubilized into microemulsions formulations. Meanwhile, two other natural products from Croton cajucara, trans-crotonin and acetyl aleuritolic acid, showed poor solubility in these formulations. The evaluation of the antioxidant capacity, by DPPH method, of plant extracts loaded into microemulsions evidenced the antioxidant activity of Phyllanthus amarus and Anacardium occidentale extracts. For Phyllanthus amarus extract, the use of microemulsions duplicated its antioxidant efficiency. A hydroalcoholic extract from Croton cajucara incorporated into a SMEDDS formulation showed bacteriostatic activity against colonies of Bacillus cereus and Escherichia coli bacteria. Additionally, Molecular Dynamics simulations were performed using micellar systems, for drug delivery systems, containing sugar-based surfactants, N-dodecylamino-1-deoxylactitol and N-dodecyl-D-lactosylamine. The computational simulations indicated that micellization process for N-dodecylamino-1- deoxylactitol is more favorable than N-dodecyl-D-lactosylamine system.

Obtenção de polímeros graftizados de quitosana e estudo das propriedades físico-químicas para aplicação na indústria do petróleo

Chitosan is a biopolymer derived from the shells of crustaceans, biodegradable, inexpensive and renewable with important physical and chemical properties. Moreover, the different modifications possible in its chemical structure generate new properties, making it an attractive polysaccharide owing to its range of potential applications. Polymers have been used in oil production operations. However, growing concern over environmental constraints has prompted oil industry to search for environmentally sustainable materials. As such, this study sought to obtain chitosan derivatives grafted with hydrophilic (poly(ethylene glycol), mPEG) and/or hydrophobic groups (n-dodecyl) via a simple (one-pot) method and evaluate their physicochemical properties as a function of varying pH using rheology, small-angle Xray scattering (SAXS), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and zeta potential. The chitosan derivatives were prepared using reductive alkylation under mild reaction conditions and the chemical structure of the polymers was characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) and CHN elemental analysis. Considering a constant mPEG/Chitosan molar ratio on modification of chitosan, the solubility of the polymer across a wide pH range (acidic, neutral and basic) could only be improved when some of the amino groups were submitted to reacetylation using the one-pot method. Under these conditions, solubility is maintained even with the simultaneous insertion of n-dodecyl. On the other hand, the solubility of derivatives obtained only through mPEG incorporation using the traditional methodology, or with the ndodecyl group, was similar to that of its precursor. The hydrophilic group promoted decreased viscosity of the polymer solutions at 10 g/L in acid medium. However, at basic pH, both viscosity and thermal stability increased, as well as exhibited a pronounced pseudoplastic behavior, suggesting strong intermolecular associations in the alkaline medium. The SAXS results showed a polyelectrolyte behavior with the decrease in pH for the polymer systems. DLS analyses revealed that although the dilute polymer solutions at 1 g/L and pH 3 exhibited a high density of protonated amino groups along the polymer chain, the high degree of charge contributed significantly to aggregation, promoting increased particle size with the decrease in pH. Furthermore, the hydrophobic group also contributed to increasing the size of aggregates in solution at pH 3, whereas the hydrophilic group helped reduce their size across the entire pH range. Nevertheless, the nature of aggregation was dependent on the pH of the medium. Zeta potential results indicated that its values do not depend solely on the surface charge of the particle, but are also dependent on the net charge of the medium. In this study, water soluble associative polymers exhibit properties that can be of great interest in the petroleum industry

Análise de impacto baseada em rastreabilidade de artefatos para linhas de produto de software

Software Product Line (SPL) consists of a software development paradigm, whose main focus is to identify features common and variability among applications in a specific domain. An LPS is designed to attend all products requirements from its product family. These requirements and LPS may have changes over time due to several factors, such as evolution of product requirements, evolution of the market, evolution of SLP process, evolution of the technologies used to develop the products. To handle these changes, LPS should be modified and evolve in order to not become obsolete, and adapt itself to new requirements. The Changes Impact Analysis is an activity that understand and identify what consequences these changes are cause on LPS. Impact Analysis on LPS may be supported by traceability relationships, which identify relationships between artefacts created during all phases of software development. Despite the solutions of change impact analysis based on traceability for software, there is a lack of solutions for assessing the change impact analysis based on traceability for LPS, since existing solutions do not include estimates specific to the artefacts of LPS. Thus, this paper proposes a process of change impact analysis and an tool for assessing the change impact through traceability of artefacts in LPS. For this purpose, we specified a process of change impact analysis that considers artifacts produced during the development of LPS. We have also implemented a tool which allows estimating and identifying artefacts and products of LPS affected from changes in other products, changes in class, changes in features, changes between releases of LPS and artefacts related to changes in core assets and variability. Finally, the results were evaluated through metrics

Avaliação sistemática de abordagens de derivação de produto

Product derivation tools are responsible for automating the development process of software product lines. The configuration knowledge, which is responsible for mapping the problem space to the solution space, plays a fundamental role on product derivation approaches. Each product derivation approach adopts different strategies and techniques to manage the existing variabilities in code assets. There is a lack of empirical studies to analyze these different approaches. This dissertation has the aim of comparing systematically automatic product derivation approaches through of the development of two different empirical studies. The studies are analyzed under two perspectives: (i) qualitative that analyzes the characteristics of approaches using specific criteria; and (ii) quantitative that quantifies specific properties of product derivation artifacts produced for the different approaches. A set of criteria and metrics are also being proposed with the aim of providing support to the qualitative and quantitative analysis. Two software product lines from the web and mobile application domains are targets of our study

Uma abordagem sistemática para implementação, gerenciamento e customização de testes de linhas de produto de software

Through the adoption of the software product line (SPL) approach, several benefits are achieved when compared to the conventional development processes that are based on creating a single software system at a time. The process of developing a SPL differs from traditional software construction, since it has two essential phases: the domain engineering - when common and variables elements of the SPL are defined and implemented; and the application engineering - when one or more applications (specific products) are derived from the reuse of artifacts created in the domain engineering. The test activity is also fundamental and aims to detect defects in the artifacts produced in SPL development. However, the characteristics of an SPL bring new challenges to this activity that must be considered. Several approaches have been recently proposed for the testing process of product lines, but they have been shown limited and have only provided general guidelines. In addition, there is also a lack of tools to support the variability management and customization of automated case tests for SPLs. In this context, this dissertation has the goal of proposing a systematic approach to software product line testing. The approach offers: (i) automated SPL test strategies to be applied in the domain and application engineering, (ii) explicit guidelines to support the implementation and reuse of automated test cases at the unit, integration and system levels in domain and application engineering; and (iii) tooling support for automating the variability management and customization of test cases. The approach is evaluated through its application in a software product line for web systems. The results of this work have shown that the proposed approach can help the developers to deal with the challenges imposed by the characteristics of SPLs during the testing process

Reqsys-MDD: uma ferramenta para mapeamento entre modelos de features e requisitos em linhas de produto de software

The approach Software Product Line (SPL) has become very promising these days, since it allows the production of customized systems on large scale through product families. For the modeling of these families the Features Model is being widely used, however, it is a model that has low level of detail and not may be sufficient to guide the development team of LPS. Thus, it is recommended add the Features Model to other models representing the system from other perspectives. The goals model PL-AOVgraph can assume this role complementary to the Features Model, since it has a to context oriented language of LPS's, which allows the requirements modeling in detail and identification of crosscutting concerns that may arise as result of variability. In order to insert PL-AOVgraph in development of LPS's, this paper proposes a bi-directional mapping between PL-AOVgraph and Features Model, which will be automated by tool ReqSys-MDD. This tool uses the approach of Model-Driven Development (MDD), which allows the construction of systems from high level models through successive transformations. This enables the integration of ReqSys-MDD with other tools MDD that use their output models as input to other transformations. So it is possible keep consistency among the models involved, avoiding loss of informations on transitions between stages of development

Caracterizando os fluxos excepcionais em linhas de produto de software: um estudo exploratório

The Exception Handling (EH) is a widely used mechanism for building robust systems. In Software Product Line (SPL) context it is not different. As EH mechanisms are embedded in most of mainstream programming languages (like Java, C# and C++), we can find exception signalers and handlers spread over code assets associated to common and variable SPL features. When exception signalers and handlers are added to an SPL in an unplanned way, one of the possible consequences is the generation of faulty family instances (i.e., instances on which common or variable features signal exceptions that are mistakenly caught inside the system). In this context, some questions arise: How exceptions flow between the optional and alternative features an LPS? Aiming at providing answers to these questions, this master thesis conducted an exploratory study, based on code inspection and static analysis code, whose goal was to categorize the main ways which exceptions flow in LPSs. To support the study, we developed an static analysis tool called PLEA (Product Line Exception Analyzer) that calculates the exceptional flows of LPSs, and categorize these flows according to the features associated with handlers and signalers. Preliminary results showed that some types of exceptional flows have more potential to yield failures in exceptional behavior of SLPs

Squid impact analyser: uma ferramenta para análise de impacto de mudança em linhas de produto de software

Software Products Lines (SPL) is a software engineering approach to developing software system families that share common features and differ in other features according to the requested software systems. The adoption of the SPL approach can promote several benefits such as cost reduction, product quality, productivity, and time to market. On the other hand, the SPL approach brings new challenges to the software evolution that must be considered. Recent research work has explored and proposed automated approaches based on code analysis and traceability techniques for change impact analysis in the context of SPL development. There are existing limitations concerning these approaches such as the customization of the analysis functionalities to address different strategies for change impact analysis, and the change impact analysis of fine-grained variability. This dissertation proposes a change impact analysis tool for SPL development, called Squid Impact Analyzer. The tool allows the implementation of change impact analysis based on information from variability modeling, mapping of variability to code assets, and existing dependency relationships between code assets. An assessment of the tool is conducted through an experiment that compare the change impact analysis results provided by the tool with real changes applied to several evolution releases from a SPL for media management in mobile devices

Dinâmica populacional do caranguejo-uçá, Ucides cordatus (Linnaeus, 1763) (CRUSTACEA, BRACHYURA, UCIDIDAE) no município de Porto do Mangue, litoral norte do estado do Rio Grande do Norte

Decapod crustaceans are one of the most important portions of megafaunal of coastal waters, playing a role as modifier of the environment and controlling populations of other organisms. Among the Decapoda, crab (brachyuran) constitutes the dominant macrofauna of mangroves. Among brachyuran is the mangrove crab (Ucides cordatus, Linnaeus, 1763), which represents the main component of the macrofauna of mangroves, particularly in Northern and Northeastern Brazil. In Brazil, its distribution is known from the state of Amapá to the north of Santa Catarina. This species is distinguished by its economic importance, being one of the main fishing resources in Brazil, generating a significant impact on their natural populations. This reduction would result in loss of value to the product, preventing its commercialization. Although it´s great ecological and economic importance, there are few articles about the biological aspects of U. cordatus, mainly in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. This work aimed to study the population dynamics of the mangrove crab, Ucides cordatus (Linnaeus, 1763), in Conchas estuary, Porto do Mangue, northern coast of Rio Grande do Norte. During the period November 2009 to October 2010 the crabs were collected monthly, obeying predetermined lunar periods (new moon or full moon) in a mangrove area in Porto do Mangue - RN. With the aid of a steel caliper (0.01 mm) and a precision balance (0.01 g) were measured biometric variables related to the animal's carapace, major propodus chela, width of abdomen (female), length of gonopodium ( males) and total weight. In addition, it was recorded, the gonads and molt stages, for males and females. In total, 476 crabs were collected, with 338 males and 138 females. Males were larger, heavier and in greater proportion than females. The reproductive period for the species in this location was limited during the months November to May, suggesting a change in current environmental legislation for the closure period. Synchrony was observed between the morphological and physiological maturity with females maturing earlier, possibly, a reproductive strategy adopted, compared to the low fishing pressure in the area. The molting period occurred in the dry season peaking in October. The analysis of growth, based on the parameters of von Bertalanffy was calculated using the nonlinear fit using modes (AJMOD). High growth rates for both males (L = 7.54 cm, k = 0.95, t0 =- 00:08; tmax = 4.84) and females (L = 6.50, k = 1 , 2, t0 =- 0008; tmax = 3.28) were found, contrasting with data from the literature, using other techniques. Males had higher asymptotic width size and longevity, but a lower growth constant when compared with females. The estimated age, for males and females, reaching the minimum capture size was 1.82 years and 1.63 years respectively. The size of physiological maturity, when individuals are able to reproduce, was estimated at 1.4 years and 1.05 years, for males and females, respectively. The recruitment period for this species is seasonal, with two peaks of occurrence, one in the rainy season and one in the dry season. This work represented the first effort on understanding the ecology of the mangrove crab, to the northern coast of Rio Grande do Norte. However, further studies on its biology should be undertaken, especially those related to growth, and recruitment, where observed that literature is more scarce

Termodinâmica de um gás de fótons no contexto de eletrodinâmicas não-lineares

The objective of this dissertation is the development of a general formalism to analyze the thermodynamical properties of a photon gas under the context of nonlinear electrodynamics (NLED). To this end it is obtained, through the systematic analysis of Maxwell s electromagnetism (EM) properties, the general dependence of the Lagrangian that describes this kind of theories. From this Lagrangian and in the background of classical field theory, we derive the general dispersion relation that photons must obey in terms of a background field and the NLED properties. It is important to note that, in order to achieve this result, an aproximation has been made in order to allow the separation of the total electromagnetic field into a strong background electromagnetic field and a perturbation. Once the dispersion relation is in hand, the usual Bose-Einstein statistical procedure is followed through which the thermodynamical properties, energy density and pressure relations are obtained. An important result of this work is the fact that equation of state remains identical to the one obtained under EM. Then, two examples are made where the thermodynamic properties are explicitly derived in the context of two NLED, Born-Infelds and a quadratic approximation. The choice of the first one is due to the vast appearance in literature and, the second one, because it is a first order approximation of a large class of NLED. Ultimately, both are chosen because of their simplicity. Finally, the results are compared to EM and interpreted, suggesting possible tests to verify the internal consistency of NLED and motivating further developement into the formalism s quantum case