Reduction of bacterial adhesion to biocompatible polymer surfaces via plasma processing

Plasma processing of the surfaces of biomaterials is interesting because it enables modification of the characteristics of a surface without affecting bulk properties. In addition, the results are strongly influenced by the conditions of the treatment. Therefore, by adjusting the plasma parameters it is possible to tailor the surface properties to best fulfill the requirements of a given application. In this work, polyurethane substrates have been subjected to sulfur hexafluoride glow discharge plasmas. The influences of different SF 6 plasma exposure times and pressures on the adhesion of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the polymer have been investigated. The wettability and surface free energy have been evaluated via contact angle measurements. At low pressure (6.7 Pa) the contact angle decreases with increasing exposure time in the 180 s to 540 s interval, but at higher pressure (13.3 Pa) it increases as a function of the same variable. Bacterial adhesion has been quantified from in vitro experiments by determining the growth of colonies on Petri dishes treated with agar nutrient. It has been observed that the surface properties play an important role in microbe adhesion. For instance, the density of adhered P. aeruginosa decreased as the surface contact angle increased. S. aureus preferred to adhere to hydrophobic surfaces. © 2011 by Begell House, Inc.

Cellular decomposition of quaternionic spherical space forms

We obtain an explicit cellular decomposition of the quaternionic spherical space forms, manifolds of positive constant curvature that are factors of an odd sphere by a free orthogonal action of a generalized quaternionic group. The cellular structure gives and explicit description of the associated cellular chain complex of modules over the integral group ring of the fundamental group. As an application we compute the Whitehead torsion of these spaces for any representation of the fundamental group. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Wavelets in the computed evaluation of mammographic accreditation phantom images

This paper presents a novel approach to the computed assessment of a mammographic phantom device. The approach shown here is fully automated and is based on the automatic selection of the region of interest, in the use of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and morphological operators to assess the quality of the American College of Radiology (ACR) mammographic phantom images. The algorithms developed here have succesfully scored 30 images obtained with different combinations of voltage applied to the tube and exposure and could notice the differences in the radiographs due to the different level of exposure to radiation. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

Commutative group codes in R4, R6, R8 and R16-Approaching the bound

Spherical codes in even dimensions n = 2m generated by a commutative group of orthogonal matrices can be determined by a quotient of m-dimensional lattices when the sublattice has an orthogonal basis. We discuss here the existence of orthogonal sublattices of the lattices A2, D3, D4 and E8, which have the best packing density in their dimensions, in order to generate families of commutative group codes approaching the bound presented in Siqueira and Costa (2008) [14]. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Periodicity in a delayed version of the kaldor trade cycle model

We are concerned with the Kaldor's trade cycle model under the effect of a delay which represents a gestation lag between a decision of investment and its effect on the capital stock. Taking the adjustment coefficient in the goods market as a bifurcation parameter, we achieve global branches of periodic solutions. In our setting the delay is a constant inherent to the specific economy. Copyright © 2013 Watam Press.

Polinômios ortogonais em várias variáveis

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Universalidade em matrizes aleatórias via problemas de Riemann-Hilbert

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

Diferentes abordagens para modelar a produção de leite de bovinos da raça Guzerá

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Estimativas de parâmetros genéticos para pesos do nascimento aos dois anos de idade para bovinos da raça Brahman utilizando modelos de regressão aleatória

Pós-graduação em Zootecnia - FCAV

Modelos de análise de dados de provas de ganho em peso de bovinos da raça Nelore

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Níveis de adubação potássica na cultura da figueira

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Horticultura) - FCA

Polinômios ortogonais e L-ortogonais associados a medidas relacionadas

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Frações contínuas que correspondem a séries de potências em dois pontos

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Limitantes para os zeros de polinômios gerados por uma relação de recorrência de três termos

Pós-graduação em Matemática - IBILCE

Problemas de Riemann-Hilbert

Pós-graduação em Matemática - IBILCE