Trypanosoma cruzi prevalence and clinical forms in blood donor candidates in Brazil

The prevalence and clinical forms of Trypanosoma cruzi were evaluated among blood donor candidates attended at a general hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from January 1997 to April 1999. The investigation was done by means of the indirect hemagglutination test and was confirmed via ELISA. Data were collected from clinical examinations, conventional electrocardiogram, chest radiography and echocar-diography. The results showed that despite Trypanosoma cruzi prevalence of 1.17% (128 patients), mainly in males aged 40 years or over, 70.8% of these patients, mainly males aged 19 to 39 years, demonstrated abnormalities that allowed the diagnosis of cardiopathy and/or esophagopathy. This once again corroborates the importance of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in urban centers.

Alcohol drinking patterns by gender, ethnicity, and social class in Bahia, Brazil

OBJECTIVE: To study patterns of alcohol consumption and prevalence of high-risk drinking. METHODS: A household survey was carried out in a sample of 2,302 adults in Salvador, Brazil. Cases of High-Risk Drinking (HRD) were defined as those subjects who referred daily or weekly binge drinking plus episodes of drunkenness and those who reported any use of alcoholic beverages but with frequent drunkenness (at least once a week). RESULTS: Fifty-six per cent of the sample acknowledged drinking alcoholic beverages. Overall consumption was significantly related with gender (male), marital status (single), migration (non-migrant), better educated (college level), and social class (upper). No significant differences were found regarding ethnicity, except for cachaça (Brazilian sugarcane liquor) and other distilled beverages. Overall 12-month prevalence of high-risk drinking was 7%, six times more prevalent among males than females (almost 13% compared to 2.4%). A positive association of HRD prevalence with education and social class was found. No overall relationship was found between ethnicity and HRD. Male gender and higher socioeconomic status were associated with increased odds of HRD. Two-way stratified analyses yielded consistent gender effects throughout all strata of independent variables. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that social and cultural elements determine local patterns of alcohol-drinking behavior. Additional research on long-term and differential effects of gender, ethnicity, and social class on alcohol use and misuse is needed in order to explain their role as sources of social health inequities.

Hybrid fuzzy Monte Carlo and logic programming model for distribution network reconfiguration in the presence of outages

This paper presents a methodology for distribution networks reconfiguration in outage presence in order to choose the reconfiguration that presents the lower power losses. The methodology is based on statistical failure and repair data of the distribution power system components and uses fuzzy-probabilistic modelling for system component outage parameters. Fuzzy membership functions of system component outage parameters are obtained by statistical records. A hybrid method of fuzzy set and Monte Carlo simulation based on the fuzzy-probabilistic models allows catching both randomness and fuzziness of component outage parameters. Once obtained the system states by Monte Carlo simulation, a logical programming algorithm is applied to get all possible reconfigurations for every system state. In order to evaluate the line flows and bus voltages and to identify if there is any overloading, and/or voltage violation a distribution power flow has been applied to select the feasible reconfiguration with lower power losses. To illustrate the application of the proposed methodology to a practical case, the paper includes a case study that considers a real distribution network.

Fuzzy Monte Carlo mathematical model for load curtailment minimization in transmission power systems

This paper presents a methodology which is based on statistical failure and repair data of the transmission power system components and uses fuzzyprobabilistic modeling for system component outage parameters. Using statistical records allows developing the fuzzy membership functions of system component outage parameters. The proposed hybrid method of fuzzy set and Monte Carlo simulation based on the fuzzy-probabilistic models allows catching both randomness and fuzziness of component outage parameters. A network contingency analysis to identify any overloading or voltage violation in the network is performed once obtained the system states by Monte Carlo simulation. This is followed by a remedial action algorithm, based on optimal power flow, to reschedule generations and alleviate constraint violations and, at the same time, to avoid any load curtailment, if possible, or, otherwise, to minimize the total load curtailment, for the states identified by the contingency analysis. In order to illustrate the application of the proposed methodology to a practical case, the paper will include a case study for the Reliability Test System (RTS) 1996 IEEE 24 BUS.

Logic programming and fuzzy Monte Carlo for distribution network reconfiguration

This paper present a methodology to choose the distribution networks reconfiguration that presents the lower power losses. The proposed methodology is based on statistical failure and repair data of the distribution power system components and uses fuzzy-probabilistic modeling for system component outage parameters. The proposed hybrid method using fuzzy sets and Monte Carlo simulation based on the fuzzyprobabilistic models allows catching both randomness and fuzziness of component outage parameters. A logic programming algorithm is applied, once obtained the system states by Monte Carlo Simulation, to get all possible reconfigurations for each system state. To evaluate the line flows and bus voltages and to identify if there is any overloading, and/or voltage violation an AC load flow has been applied to select the feasible reconfiguration with lower power losses. To illustrate the application of the proposed methodology, the paper includes a case study that considers a 115 buses distribution network.

Towards a future SCADA

Currently, Power Systems (PS) already accommodate a substantial penetration of DG and operate in competitive environments. In the future PS will have to deal with largescale integration of DG and other distributed energy resources (DER), such as storage means, and provide to market agents the means to ensure a flexible and secure operation. This cannot be done with the traditional PS operation. SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) is a vital infrastructure for PS. Current SCADA adaptation to accommodate the new needs of future PS does not allow to address all the requirements. In this paper we present a new conceptual design of an intelligent SCADA, with a more decentralized, flexible, and intelligent approach, adaptive to the context (context awareness). Once a situation is characterized, data and control options available to each entity are re-defined according to this context, taking into account operation normative and a priori established contracts. The paper includes a case-study of using future SCADA features to use DER to deal with incident situations, preventing blackouts.

O trabalho de projeto no desenvolvimento da cidadania

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção de grau de mestre em Educação Matemática na Educação Pré-Escolar e nos 1º e 2º Ciclos do Ensino Básico

PCMAT Metadata Authoring Tool

This paper introduces the PCMAT platform project and, in particular, one of its components, the PCMAT Metadata Authoring Tool. This is an educational web application that allows the project metadata creators to write the metadata associated to each learning object without any concern for the metadata schema semantics. Furthermore it permits the project managers to add or delete elements to the schema, without having to rewrite or compile any code.

Ubiquitous ambient intelligence in a flight decision assistance system

In this paper a new free flight instrument is presented. The instrument named FlyMaster distinguishes from others not only at hardware level, since it is the first one based on a PDA and with an RF interface for wireless sensors, but also at software level once its structure was developed following some guidelines from Ambient Intelligence and ubiquitous and context aware mobile computing. In this sense the software has several features which avoid pilot intervention during flight. Basically, the FlyMaster adequate the displayed information to each flight situation. Furthermore, the FlyMaster has its one way of show information.

Antimicrobial activity of pyrazine and quinoxaline N,N’-dioxide heterocyclic compounds

The nitrogen heterocyclic organic compounds 1,4 dioxide pyrazine and quinoxaline derivatives have been widely studied due to their potential use as synthetic drugs. The thermochemical study of three N,N´-dioxides: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine-1,4-dioxide, tetramethylpyrazine-1,4-dioxide and 6-chloro-2,3-dimethilquinoxaline 1,4-dioxide has been recently developed in order to establish relationships among the energetical, structural and reactivity properties [4,5]. Several studies have reported their pharmacological activity, particularly as antimicrobial agents [1,2,3]. It has also been established a relation between energetical and structural properties and biological activity, once these compounds present N – oxide bonds, increasing their oxidative capacity. The present work reports the study of antimicrobial activity for those compounds against the bacteria Geobacillus stearothermophylus, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Escherichia coli and also against the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae PYCC 4072, Candida albicans PYCC3436T, Candida tropicalis PYCC, Issatchenka Orientalis PYCC. The determination of the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC), points to an antimicrobial activity and the preliminary results indicate that these compounds may be potential candidates as antimicrobial drugs with clinical, agriculture or food industries applications.

On the development of textual competence in primary education

The aim of this article is to present the results of an action research project, which has been put into practice in Primary Education. This project was intended to develop students’ textual competence, considering both comprehension and textual production. Our starting hypothesis was that teaching the schematisation of text types, focusing on linguistic devices that underlie text production, would promote the development of textual competence, leading to the production of more coherent and cohesive texts. In order to test this hypothesis we implemented the project in three phases. First, before the intervention, we collected texts produced by the students. Secondly, we implemented a didactic program designed to develop students’ textual competence. Lastly, after the intervention, we collected students’ texts once again. Data was analyzed according to categories that confer cohesion and coherence to different types of texts. Narrative, descriptive, and explanatory texts were assessed in terms of 1) building an autonomous text; 2) hierarchisation of information, and 3) textual organisation. Overall, results indicate that students developed their text conceptualisations, their understanding of the different structures of texts, and produced better writing. Indeed, their written work shows a marked progression from the beginning of the intervention program to the end of the program.

Children's metalinguistic activity in the construction of linguistic existence

In this paper we examine the construction of first entities in narratives produced by children of 5, 7, 10 years and adults1 . The study demonstrates that when children reformulate they try to construct entities detached from the situation of enunciation, which means that they construct a detached or a translated plane and they construct linguistic existence of entities. Entities must first be introduced into the enunciative space and then comments will be made in subsequent utterances. Constructing existence supposes extraction. This consists of “singling out an occurrence, that is, isolating and drawing its spatiotemporal boundaries” (Culioli, 1990, p. 182) . Once the occurrence of the notion is constructed (which means it has become a separate occurrence with situational properties), children can predicate about it. However, there are children who do not construct the linguistic existence of entities. I hypothesize that the mode of task presentation influences the success of constructing linguistic existence. Sharing the investigator’s knowledge about the stimulus images, children do not ascribe an existential status to the occurrence of the notional domain.

Word learning and text organisation: an intervention case

In the present study we focus on the interaction between the acquisition of new words and text organisation. In the acquisition of new words we emphasise the acquisition of paradigmatic relations such as hyponymy, meronymy and semantic sets. We work with a group of girls attending a private school for adolescents in serious difficulties. The subjects are from disadvantaged families. Their writing skills were very poor. When asked to describe a garden, they write a short text of a single paragraph, the lexical items were generic, there were no adjectives, and all of them use mainly existential verbs. The intervention plan assumed that subjects must to be exposed to new words, working out its meaning. In presence of referents subjects were taught new words making explicit the intended relation of the new term to a term already known. In the classroom subjects were asked to write all the words they knew drawing the relationships among them. They talk about the words specifying the relation making explicit pragmatic directions like is a kind of, is a part of or are all x. After that subjects were exposed to the task of choosing perspective. The work presented in this paper accounts for significant differences in the text of the subjects before and after the intervention. While working new words subjects were organising their lexicon and learning to present a whole entity in perspective.

Modelo de previsão meteorológica baseado em sistemas de inferência difusa

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Qualidade de vida do doente com insuficiência cardíaca do Centro Hospitalar Tâmega e Sousa

A Insuficiência Cardíaca (IC), como uma doença crónica, tem vindo a ser alvo de análise devido ao seu impacto, não só a nível económico, mas também a nível da qualidade de vida (QV). Vários estudos demonstram que os doentes com IC apresentam um comprometimento da QV, em várias dimensões. OBJETIVO: Descrever a QV dos doentes com IC do Centro Hospitalar Tâmega e Sousa (CHTS). METODOLOGIA: O estudo é quantitativo, transversal, prospetivo e descritivo. Foi aplicado, entre janeiro a junho de 2012, o Euro Quality of Life Instrument-5D (EQ-5D) para avaliar o estado de saúde (ES) e o Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) para avaliar a QV de 326 doentes com IC, dos quais 226 seguidos na Consulta Externa (77,9% masculinos, idade média 67,5 ±11,6 anos, desvio padrão) e 100 na Clínica de IC (CIC) (73,0% masculinos, idade média 59,0 anos, desvio padrão ±12,7). Foi usada a estatística descritiva, teste t, qui quadrado e a análise da variância. RESULTADOS: Os doentes do género feminino, do grupo etário 75-100 anos, solteiros, divorciados, separados ou viúvos, que não sabem ler nem escrever, sem apoio dos amigos e sem condições económicas mínimas para o tratamento da IC apresentaram pior ES e QV. Os doentes submetidos à terapia de ressincronização cardíaca e às cirurgias valvular e de revascularização tiveram melhor QV. Os doentes com IC de etiologia isquémica e em classe III-IV da New York Heart Association apresentaram pior ES. Nestas classes e com fração de ejeção ≤35% os doentes tiveram pior QV. Os doentes da CIC evidenciaram melhor ES e QV. CONCLUSÕES: A QV dos doentes com IC do CHTS é influenciada pelos fatores pessoais, clínicos e pelo local de intervenção. É fundamental mensurar a QV, na prática clínica, para evidenciar a perceção do ES dos doentes e o impacto da IC na QV.