System of integration of modularised assembly FMS

The modularised assembly FMS (Flexible Manufacturing System) cascade is a form of system design which, the authors feel, could be viable in a variety of organisational and operational settings where high product mix manufacture and unitary batch sizing are common features. The philosophy behind the concept is that production facilities are market-driven and customers' orders place a direct demand pull on final assembly which, in turn, triggers all preceeding activities. Greater flexibility~is recognized as a necessary feature in modern manufacture and the implementation of modularised FMS in conjunction with state-of-the-art hardware and computer software systems enable conditions under which more flexible processing can take place.

Effect of catechol derivatives on cell growth and lipoxygenase activity

Derivatives of salicylic acid have been synthesized as potential lipoxygenase inhibitors. Agents containing a phenolic dihydroxy moiety showed potent (IC 5010 -6-10 -7 M) inhibition of the growth of murine colonic tumour cells in vitro, and were effective inhibitors of 5-, 12- and 15-lipoxygenase in intact cells. The catechols were also potent inhibitors of rabbit reticulocyte 15-lipoxygenase (IC 50 ∼1 μM). © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sustaining local manufacturing: a longitudinal study of Swedish companies

This paper reports an investigation of local sustainable production in Sweden aimed at exploring the factors contributing to survival and competitiveness of manufacturing. Eight companies were studied on two occasions 30 years apart; in 1980 and 2010. To provide a valid longitudinal, perspective a common format for data collection was used. As a framework for data collection and analysis the DRAMA methodology was employed (Bennett and Forrester, 1990). There are a number of results reported in detail concerning long term competitiveness and sustainability of manufacturing companies.

Estudo paramétrico da injeção de polímeros em reservatórios de petróleo

Developing an efficient methodology for oil recovery is extremely important . Within the range of enh anced oil recovery, known as EOR, the injection of polymer solutions becomes effective in controlling the mobility of displacing fluid . This method consists of adding polymers to the injection water to increase its viscosity, so that more water diffuses in to the porous medium and increasing the sweep efficiency in the reservoir. This work is studied by numerical simulation , application of the injection polymer solution in a homogeneous reservoir , semisynthetic with similar characteristics to the reservoirs of the Brazilian Northeast , numerical simulations were performed using thermal simulator STARS from CMG (Computer Modelling Group ). The study aimed to analyze the influence of some parameters on the behavior of reservoir oil production, with the response to cumulative production. Simulations were performed to analyze the influence of water injection, polymer solution and alternating injection of water banks and polymer solution, comparing the results for each simulated condition. The primary outcomes were: oil viscosity, percentage of injected polymer, polymer viscosity and flow rate of water injection. The evaluation of the influence of variables consisted of a complete experimental design followed a Pareto analysis for the purpose of pointing out which va riables would be most influential on the response represented b y the cumulative oil production . It was found that all variables significantly influenced the recovery of oil and the injection of polymer solution on an ongoing basis is more efficient for the cumulative production compared to oil recovery by continuous water injection. The primary recovery show ed low levels of oil production , water injection significantly improves the pro duction of oil in the reservoir , but the injection of polymer solution em erges as a new methodology to increase the production of oil, increasing the life of the well and possible reduction of water produced.

Desenvolvimento de estruturas integradas de filtros e antenas para aplicações em sistemas de comunicações sem fio

This paper presents a study of the integration of filters and microstrip antennas, yielding devices named as filtennas for applications in wireless communications systems. The design of these structures is given from the observation of filtennas based integration between horn antennas and frequency selective surfaces (FSS), used in the band X. The choice of microstrip line structures for the development of a new configuration filtennas justifies the wide application of these transmission lines, in recent decades, always resulting in the production of circuit structures with planar light-weight, compact size, low cost, easy to construct and particularly easy to integrate with other microwave circuits. In addition, the antenna structure considered for the composition of filtennas consists of a planar monopole microstrip to microstrip filters integrated in the feed line of the antenna. In particular, are considered elliptical monopole microstrip (operating in UWB UWB) microstrip filters and (in structures with associated sections in series and / or coupled). In addition, the monopole microstrip has a proper bandwidth and omnidirectional radiation pattern, such that its integration with microstrip filters results in decreased bandwidth, but with slight changes in the radiation pattern. The methods used in the analysis of monopoles, and filters were filtennas finite elements and moments by using commercial software Ansoft Designer and HFSS Ansoft, respectively. Specifically, we analyze the main characteristics of filtennas, such as radiation pattern, gain and bandwidth. Were designed, constructed and measures, several structures filtennas, for validation of the simulated results. Were also used computational tools (CAD) in the process of building prototypes of planar monopoles, filters and filtennas. The prototypes were constructed on substrates of glass-fiber (FR4). Measurements were performed at the Laboratory for Telecommunications UFRN. Comparisons were made between simulated and measured, and found good agreement in the cases considered

Construção de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem para aplicação do processo de enfermagem baseado na Nanda International, NOC, NIC e CIPE®

This study aimed to build a virtual learning environment for application of the nursing process based on the NANDA-I, NOC, NIC and ICNP® . Faced with problems related to learning of the nursing process and classifications, there is an urgent need to develop innovative teaching resources that modify the relationship between students and teachers. The methodology was based on the steps inception, development, construction and transition, and the software development process Rational Process Unifield. The team involved in the development of this environment was composed by researchers and students of The Care and Epidemiological Practice in Health and Nursing and Group of the Software Engineering curse of the Federal University Rio Grande do Norte, with the participation of the Lisbon and Porto Schools of Nursing, in Portugal. In the inception stage the inter research communication was in order to define the functions, features and tools for the construction process. In the preparation, step the planning and modeling occurred, which resulted in the creation of a diagram and a architectural drawings that specify the features and functionality of the software. The development, unit testing and integrated in interfaces of the modules and areas (administrator, teacher, student, and construction of the NP). Then the transition step was performed, which showed complete and functioning system, as well as the training and use by researchers with its use in practice. In conclusion, this study allowed for the planning and the construction of an educational technology, and it is expected that its implementation will trigger a substantial change in the learning of the nursing process and classifications, with the student being active agent of the learning process. Later, an assessment will be made of functional performance, which will enable the software development, with a feedback, correction of defects and necessary changes. It is believed that the software increment after the reviews, this tool grow further and help insert this methodology and every language under the educational and health institutions, promoting paradigmatic desired change by nursing.

Modelos de condutividade térmica em rochas silicáticas, com ênfase em rochas da província Borborema, NE do Brasil

A practical approach to estimate rock thermal conductivities is to use rock models based just on the observed or expected rock mineral content. In this study, we evaluate the performances of the Krischer and Esdorn (KE), Hashin and Shtrikman (HS), classic Maxwell (CM), Maxwell-Wiener (MW), and geometric mean (GM) models in reproducing the measures of thermal conductivity of crystalline rocks.We used 1,105 samples of igneous and metamorphic rocks collected in outcroppings of the Borborema Province, Northeastern Brazil. Both thermal conductivity and petrographic modal analysis (percent volumes of quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase, and sum of mafic minerals) were done. We divided the rocks into two groups: (a) igneous and ortho-derived (or meta-igneous) rocks and (b) metasedimentary rocks. The group of igneous and ortho-derived rocks (939 samples) covers most the lithologies de_ned in the Streckeisen diagram, with higher concentrations in the fields of granite, granodiorite, and tonalite. In the group of metasedimentary rocks (166 samples), it were sampled representative lithologies, usually of low to medium metamorphic grade. We treat the problem of reproducing the measured values of rock conductivity as an inverse problem where, besides the conductivity measurements, the volume fractions of the constituent minerals are known and the effective conductivities of the constituent minerals and model parameters are unknown. The key idea was to identify the model (and its associated estimates of effective mineral conductivities and parameters) that better reproduces the measures of rock conductivity. We evaluate the model performances by the quantity  that is equal to the percentage of number of rock samples which estimated conductivities honor the measured conductivities within the tolerance of 15%. In general, for all models, the performances were quite inferior for the metasedimentary rocks (34% <  < 65%) as compared with the igneous and ortho-derived rocks (51% <  < 70%). For igneous and ortho-derived rocks, all model performances were very similar ( = 70%), except the GM-model that presented a poor performance (51% <  < 65%); the KE and HS-models ( = 70%) were slightly superior than the CM and MW-models ( = 67%). The quartz content is the dominant factor in explaining the rock conductivity for igneous and ortho-derived rocks; in particular, using the MW-model the solution is in practice vi UFRN/CCET– Dissertação de mestrado the series association of the quartz content. On the other hand, for metasedimentary rocks, model performances were different and the performance of the KEmodel ( = 65%) was quite superior than the HS ( = 53%), CM (34% <  < 42%), MW ( = 40%), and GM (35% <  < 42%). The estimated effective mineral conductivities are stable for perturbations both in the rock conductivity measures and in the quartz volume fraction. The fact that the metasedimentary rocks are richer in platy-minerals explains partially the poor model performances, because both the high thermal anisotropy of biotite (one of the most common platy-mineral) and the difficulty in obtaining polished surfaces for measurement coupling when platyminerals are present. Independently of the rock type, both very low and very high values of rock conductivities are hardly explained by rock models based just on rock mineral content.

Uso de resíduos de queima de casca de café e argila da região sul da Bahia na obtenção de isolador elétrico cerâmico

The electrical ceramic insulators industry, uses noble raw materials such as siliceous and aluminous clays of white burning, in order to provide plasticity of the mass and contribute to electrical and mechanical properties required of the product, and feldspar with the flux function In literature references the composition of the masses indicates that the clay participates in percentage between 20 and 32, and feldspar 8 to 35, these materials have significant cost. In this research was performed the total replacement of commercial clay, for white burning clay from Santa Luzia region in southern Bahia and partial replacement of feldspar by ash residue of husk conilon coffee burning, from extreme south of Bahia. The objective of replacement these raw materials is to aver its technical feasibility and call attention for the embryo pole of ceramic industry for the existing in the south and extreme south of Bahia, which has significant reserves of noble raw materials such as clay white burning, kaolin, quartz and feldspar, and generates significant volume of gray husk conilon coffee as alternate flux. Clay Santa Luzia is prima noble material whose current commercial application is the production of white roofing. The residue of coffee husk ash is discarded near of production sites and is harmful to the environment. Phase diagrams and statistic design of experiments, were used for optimization and cost savings in research. The results confirmed the expectations of obtaining electrical ceramic insulators, with white burning clay of Santa Luzia and partial replacement up to 35.4% of feldspar, by treaty residue of conilon ash coffee husk burning. The statistic design that showed best results was for formulation with percentages of: clay 26.4 to 30.4%; kaolin 14.85 to 17.1%; feldspar 12.92 to 16.96%; R2 residue 7.08 to 9.2% and Quartz 32.5 to 38.75%, relative to the total mass of the mixture. The best results indicated; 0.2 to 1.4% apparent porosity , water absorption 0.1 to 0.7%, flexural strength 35 to 45MPa , dielectric strength 35-41 kV/cm , the transverse resistivity 8x109 2.5x1010 Ω.cm and for the dielectric constant ε/ε0 7 to 10.4, specification parameters for manufacturing ceramic electrical insulators of low and medium voltage.

Avaliação do acesso aos serviços de reabilitação física para vítimas de acidentes de trânsito: caminhos para melhoria da qualidade do sistema de saúde

The Physical Rehabilitation services (PR) are of fundamental importance in combating the global epidemic of Traffic Accidents (TA). Considering the numerous physical and social consequences of the survivors, quality problems in access to PR are a hazard to recovery of victims. It is necessary to improve the management of quality of services, assessing priority dimensions and intervening in their causes, to ensure rehabilitation available in time and suitable conditions. This study aimed to identify barriers to access to rehabilitation considering the perception of TA victims and professionals. The aim is also to estimate the access to rehabilitation and their associated factors. This is a qualitative and quantitative study of exploratory nature developed in Natal / RN with semi-structured interviews with 19 health professionals and telephone survey to 155 victims of traffic accidents. To explore barriers to access the speeches were transcribed and analyzed using the Alceste software (version 4.9). During the interviews used the following guiding question: “What barriers hinder or prevent access to physical rehabilitation for victims of traffic accidents?”. The names of classes and axes resulting from Alceste was performed by ad hoc query to three external researchers with subsequent consensus of the most representative name of analysis. We conducted multivariate analysis of the influence of the variables of the accident, sociodemographic, clinical and assistance on access to rehabilitation. Associations with p <0.20 in the bivariate analysis were submitted to logistic regression, step by step, with p <0.05 and confidence interval (CI) of 95%. The main barriers identified were: “Bureaucratic regulation”, “Long time to start rehabilitation”, “No post-surgery referral” and “inefficiency of public services”. These barriers were divided into a theoretical model built from the cause-effect diagram, in which we observed that insufficient access to rehabilitation is the product of causes related to organizational structure, work processes, professional and patients. Was constructed two logistic regression models: “General access to rehabilitation” and “Access to rehabilitation to public service”. 51.6% of patients had access to rehabilitation, and 32.9% in public and 17.9% in the private sector. The regression model “General access to rehabilitation” included the variables Income (OR:3.7), Informal Employment (OR:0.11), Unemployment (OR:0.15), Perceived Need for PR (OR:10) and Referral (OR: 27.5). The model “Access to rehabilitation in the public service” was represented by the “Referral to Public Service” (OR: 23.0) and “Private Health Plan” (OR: 0.07). Despite the known influence of social determinants on access to health services, a situation difficult to control by the public administration, this study found that the organizational and bureaucratic procedures established in health care greatly determine access to rehabilitation. Access difficulties show the seriousness of the problem and the factors suggest the need for improvements in comprehensive care for TA survivors and avoid unnecessary prolongation of the suffering of the victims of this epidemic.

Desenvolvimento biotecnológico de uma emulsão de uso tópico a base de óleo de rã-touro Rana catesbeiana Shaw

The skin is one of the largest organs of the human body and accounts for about 16% of body weight. The body protection against the external environment microorganisms is one of its most important functions, however is necessary that the skin remain intact for this function be exercised, so that when there is an injury on the skin, the process of restructuring needs to be starts, however this restructuration may also be compromised due to some diseases, justifying even more the need for the development of topical products that promote or accelerate the skin healing. Thus the aim of this study was to extract bullfrog oil and to develop a suitable topical emulsion. Two different oil samples were extracted by hot or organic solvent process. Titration techniques and gas chromatography- mass spectrometry were used to characterize the bullfrog oil. The required hydrophile-lipophile balance (HLBr) of bullfrog oil was determined and a pseudo-ternary phase diagram was constructed. The stability of the topical emulsion was evaluated. Then, cellular viability was determined by MTT assay using normal fibroblasts (3T3) and melanoma (B16F10) cells lines. The hot extraction yield was 60.6%. The major polyunsaturated compounds found were Eicosapentaenoic acid (17.6%) and Arachidonic acid (8.4%). HLBr study demonstrated the presence of stable systems with HLB ranging from 12.1 to 13.5 and the pseudo-ternary phase diagram showed mainly emulsion systems (62%). Topical emulsion showed 390 nm, polydispersity 0.05, zeta potential -25 mV and remained stable for ninety days. The bullfrog oil and topical emulsion did not showed citotoxicity in normal fibroblasts cells. However, these systems showed significantly inhibition of melanoma cells growth. In conclusion, the bullfrog oil presented desirable chemical characteristics required to be used for the development of a pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.

Modelagem do comportamento à fadiga de compósitos de fibra de vidro a partir de um modelo misto de RNA

This work consists basically in the elaboration of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) in order to model the composites materials’ behavior when submitted to fatigue loadings. The proposal is to develop and present a mixed model, which associate an analytical equation (Adam Equation) to the structure of the ANN. Given that the composites often shows a similar behavior when subject to float loadings, this equation aims to establish a pre-defined comparison pattern for a generic material, so that the ANN fit the behavior of another composite material to that pattern. In this way, the ANN did not need to fully learn the behavior of a determined material, because the Adam Equation would do the big part of the job. This model was used in two different network architectures, modular and perceptron, with the aim of analyze it efficiency in distinct structures. Beyond the different architectures, it was analyzed the answers generated from two sets of different data – with three and two SN curves. This model was also compared to the specialized literature results, which use a conventional structure of ANN. The results consist in analyze and compare some characteristics like generalization capacity, robustness and the Goodman Diagrams, developed by the networks.

Indicador de inconformidades em instalações elétricas de baixa tensão

With the progress of devices technology, generation and use of energy ways, power quality parameters start to influence more significantly the various kinds of power consumers. Currently, there are many types of devices that analyze power quality. However, there is a need to create devices, and perform measurements and calculate parameters, find flaws, suggest changes, and to support the management of the installation. In addition, you must ensure that such devices are accessible. To maintain this balance, one magnitude measuring method should be used which does not require great resources processing or memory. The work shows that application of the Goertzel algorithm, compared with the commonly used FFT allows measurements to be made using much less hardware resources, available memory space to implement management functions. The first point of the work is the research of troubles that are more common for low voltage consumers. Then we propose the functional diagram indicate what will be measured, calculated, what problems will be detected and that solutions can be found. Through the Goertzel algorithm simulation using Scilab, is possible to calculate frequency components of a distorted signal with satisfactory results. Finally, the prototype is assembled and tests are carried out by adjusting the parameters necessary for one to maintain a reliable device without increasing its cost.

Frases magnéticas, polaritons magnéticos e modos magnetostáticos em filmes e cristais magnônicos de terras-raras

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq

Frases magnéticas, polaritons magnéticos e modos magnetostáticos em filmes e cristais magnônicos de terras-raras

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq

Tree heights and diameters of Switzerland's Sanasilva forests

Measurements of tree heights and crown sizes are essential in long-term monitoring of spatially distributed forests to assess the health of forests over time. In Switzerland, in 1994 and 1997, more than 4'500 trees have been recorded in a 8x8 km plot within the Sanasilva Inventory, which comprises the Swiss Level I sites of the International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests' (ICP Forests). Tree heights and crown sizes were measured for the dominant and co-dominant trees (n = 1,723), resulting in a data set from 171 plots in Switzerland, spreading over a broad range of climatic gradient and forest characteristics (species recorded = 20). Average tree height was 22.1 m, average DBH 34.6 cm and crown diameter 6.5 m. The data set presented here is open to use and shall foster research in allometric equation modelling.