FY 2016 Equipment and Vehicle Revolving Fund report

The Equipment and Vehicle Revolving Fund report covers all equipment and vehicle purchases through the highway materials and equipment revolving fund during FY 2016.

Summary of Commercial Fishing Laws for Other Equipment/Trotlines and General Commercial Fishing Information 2016-2017

Each year the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Marine Resources Division publishes a summary of the laws and regulations of commercial fishing in the state. This publication provides the license requirements, definitions, restrictions, and laws and regulations for the use of fishing equipment.

Development and characterization of cutting-edge equipment for EMC measurements and advanced power line filter design

This Doctoral Thesis aims at studying, developing, and characterizing cutting edge equipment for EMC measurements and proposing innovative and advanced power line filter design techniques. This document summarizes a three-year work, is strictly industry oriented and relies on EMC standards and regulations. It contains the main results, findings, and effort with the purpose of bringing innovative contributions at the scientific community. Conducted emissions interferences are usually suppressed with power line filters. These filters are composed by common mode chokes, X capacitors and Y capacitors in order to mitigate both the differential mode and common mode noise, which compose the overall conducted emissions. However, even at present days, available power line filter design techniques show several disadvantages. First of all, filters are designed to be implemented in ideal 50 Ω systems, condition which is far away from reality. Then, the attenuation introduced by the filter for common or differential mode noise is analyzed independently, without considering the possible mode conversion that can be produced by impedance mismatches, or asymmetries in either the power line filter itself or the equipment under test. Ultimately, the instrumentation used to perform conducted emissions measurement is, in most cases, not adequate. All these factors lead to an inaccurate design, contributing at increasing the size of the filter, making it more expensive and less performant than it should be.

Rapidly Switching Multidirectional Defibrillation: Reversal Of Ventricular Fibrillation With Lower Energy Shocks.

Cardiac arrest after open surgery has an incidence of approximately 3%, of which more than 50% of the cases are due to ventricular fibrillation. Electrical defibrillation is the most effective therapy for terminating cardiac arrhythmias associated with unstable hemodynamics. The excitation threshold of myocardial microstructures is lower when external electrical fields are applied in the longitudinal direction with respect to the major axis of cells. However, in the heart, cell bundles are disposed in several directions. Improved myocardial excitation and defibrillation have been achieved by applying shocks in multiple directions via intracardiac leads, but the results are controversial when the electrodes are not located within the cardiac chambers. This study was designed to test whether rapidly switching shock delivery in 3 directions could increase the efficiency of direct defibrillation. A multidirectional defibrillator and paddles bearing 3 electrodes each were developed and used in vivo for the reversal of electrically induced ventricular fibrillation in an anesthetized open-chest swine model. Direct defibrillation was performed by unidirectional and multidirectional shocks applied in an alternating fashion. Survival analysis was used to estimate the relationship between the probability of defibrillation and the shock energy. Compared with shock delivery in a single direction in the same animal population, the shock energy required for multidirectional defibrillation was 20% to 30% lower (P < .05) within a wide range of success probabilities. Rapidly switching multidirectional shock delivery required lower shock energy for ventricular fibrillation termination and may be a safer alternative for restoring cardiac sinus rhythm.

Undulatory Physical Resistance Training Program Increases Maximal Strength In Elderly Type 2 Diabetics.

To investigate the effects of a specific protocol of undulatory physical resistance training on maximal strength gains in elderly type 2 diabetics. The study included 48 subjects, aged between 60 and 85 years, of both genders. They were divided into two groups: Untrained Diabetic Elderly (n=19) with those who were not subjected to physical training and Trained Diabetic Elderly (n=29), with those who were subjected to undulatory physical resistance training. The participants were evaluated with several types of resistance training's equipment before and after training protocol, by test of one maximal repetition. The subjects were trained on undulatory resistance three times per week for a period of 16 weeks. The overload used in undulatory resistance training was equivalent to 50% of one maximal repetition and 70% of one maximal repetition, alternating weekly. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences (p<0.05) between pre-test and post-test over a period of 16 weeks. The average gains in strength were 43.20% (knee extension), 65.00% (knee flexion), 27.80% (supine sitting machine), 31.00% (rowing sitting), 43.90% (biceps pulley), and 21.10% (triceps pulley). Undulatory resistance training used with weekly different overloads was effective to provide significant gains in maximum strength in elderly type 2 diabetic individuals.

Caracterização reológica das diferentes fases de extrato de inulina de raízes de chicória, obtidas por abaixamento de temperatura

Inulin is a functional food ingredient, generally employed as sugar or fat substitute in food systems. This ingredient can be found in several vegetal products, including chicory roots. As the solubility of inulin is susceptible to temperature changes, the product suffers a fractionalization resulting in two phases when cooled, originating a precipitated phase, more viscose, and a liquid phase, of lesser viscosity. The study of rheological properties of different phases of inulin extract is important for equipment designing, such as mixer and bombs. In this work, rheological behavior at three different temperatures (25; 40 and 50 ºC) was determined for liquid and precipitated phases of inulin liquid extract, extracted from chicory roots by hot water diffusion and cooled at two different temperatures (8 and -10 ºC), suffering phases separation. The precipitated phase was analyzed in two conditions: pure and with the addition of microencapsulating agents (maltodextrin and hydrolized starch). All of them presented a linear behavior, similar to that of the Plastics of Bingham. Some of them, however, were not an adequate fit to this model.

Índice de previsão de produção de leite para vacas Jersey

In Brazil the adoption of several models of cattle confinement leads to special conditions for management methods in dairy production, which can be improved by the use of technology that assures better herd management. Indexes relating environmental variables to production are applied for the prediction of milk production. The values of temperature and relative humidity, rain index, solar radiation and pasture soil temperature are generally considered potential stress agents for cows. The objective of this research was to develop an index for predicting milk production for high productivity Jersey milking cows lodged in semi confinement in tropical conditions. The experiment considered two treatments: A - the cows waited for 30 minutes prior to milking in a room with a shower associated to a fan; B - the cows did not have access to this room (control). Other than the waiting period, the cows had access to pasture. Differences in the effect of average production were not statistically significant. The analysis for studying the effect of the variables and designing the model led to a statistical model relating the variables milk production and rain index, as well as the maximum soil temperature of pasture, and milk production.

Análise do investimento em climatização para bovinos de leite em sistema de alojamento free-stall

The difficulty in adapting European dairy cows breeds in Brazil affect considerably the milk production sector. Brazilian climatic conditions are not totally favorable and the development of new tecnologies is needed for the animals express their genetic potential, as well as their best feed conversion. An economical analysis of the applied investment in the free-stall climatization equipment in dairy housing, for estimating studies related to profit, possibility of return investment as well as time for this return is necessary. The objective of this research was to evaluate the influence of climatization investment in the milk production process and analyze the economical aspect of this investment. There were used 470 high productive dairy cows with genetic and morphologic homogeneous characteristics, and analyzed in two similar periods. Investment calculations were done using Excell®. The results were satisfactory and the invested capital was proved to return to the producer in a short term, 57 days.

Modelagem matemática e simulação numérica do resfriamento rápido de morango com ar forçado

This work approaches the forced air cooling of strawberry by numerical simulation. The mathematical model that was used describes the process of heat transfer, based on the Fourier's law, in spherical coordinates and simplified to describe the one-dimensional process. For the resolution of the equation expressed for the mathematical model, an algorithm was developed based on the explicit scheme of the numerical method of the finite differences and implemented in the scientific computation program MATLAB 6.1. The validation of the mathematical model was made by the comparison between theoretical and experimental data, where strawberries had been cooled with forced air. The results showed to be possible the determination of the convective heat transfer coefficient by fitting the numerical and experimental data. The methodology of the numerical simulations was showed like a promising tool in the support of the decision to use or to develop equipment in the area of cooling process with forced air of spherical fruits.

Equipamento microprocessado para geração de sinal de correção diferencial, em tempo real, para GPS

This work presents the development of low cost microprocessor-based equipment for generation of differential GPS correction signal, in real time, and configuration and supervision of the GPS base. The developed equipment contains a dedicated microcontroller connected to the GPS receiver, alphanumeric display and multifunction keyboard for configuration and operation of the system and communication interfaces. The electronic circuit has the function of receiving the information from GPS base; interpret them, converting the sentence in the RTCM SC-104 protocol. The microcontroller software makes the conversion of the signal received by the GPS base from the specific format to RTCM SC-104 protocol. The processing main board has two serials RS-232C standard interfaces. One of them is used for configuration and receiving the information generated by the GPS base. The other operates as output, sending the differential correction signal for the transmission system. The development of microprocessor-based equipment showed that it is possible the construction of a low cost private station for real time generation of differential GPS correction signal.

Proposta de mecanismo de lavagem em equipamentos de beneficiamento de tomate de mesa

The cleanness level in fresh market tomatoes cleaning equipment is essential for consumer acceptance and conservation of product quality. However, the washing process in cleaning current equipments demands an excessive volume of water, leading to serious economic and environmental concerns. The objective of this work was to contribute with technical information for the washing system optimization. The conventional washing system currently used in cleaning equipment, which consists of perforated PVC pipes, was compared with a proposed system which uses commercial sprays. Characteristic curves (flow rate versus pressure) for both systems were determined in lab conditions and the respective water consumptions were compared. The results confirmed the excess of water consumption in the conventional washing systems, and the proposed system proved that is possible to reduce it, and the use of sprays allowed the rational use of the water.

Influência do auxílio mecânico na colheita de tomates

Fresh tomato harvest is traditionally made without harvesting aids. The main goal of this research was to evaluate performance parameters of fresh tomato harvesting aid equipment and compare it to traditional harvest, in the state of São Paulo. Therefore, an equipment was developed and the harvest process was evaluated in four different ways: traditional system (harvest system used in Santa Luzia farm, Brotas, SP, Brazil), picker walking with a harvesting aid equipment, picker seated in a harvesting aid equipment and a composition of both systems: two pickers seated and one picker walking in two different velocities ranges. The different systems using harvesting aid showed an average yield by picker more efficient than reference. Harvest system using three pickers showed an increase of 290% on yield average by picker, on the range of 0.5-1.0 fruit per plant, followed by the systems with a walking picker, that increased productivity in 41%, and picker seated harvester, that showed an increase of 35%. These results demonstrate the importance of using a harvesting aid equipment.

Qualidade da classificação do tomate de mesa em unidades de beneficiamento

Quality evaluation of classification was done in two fresh market tomatoes packing house, using electronically and mechanical equipments in two harvest periods, summer and winter seasons. The main goal of this work was to evaluate size and color grading conformity with the standards proposed by the Brazilian Program for Horticulture Modernization and size grading obtainded with the one established by the packer. The cultivar studied was Carmen. The results showed that there was no grade conformity with the fresh tomato quality standards proposed by the Brazilian Program for Horticulture Modernization. The grade conformity obtained when compared with the one programmed by the packer, was only for large sizes, in both equipments. The electronically equipment has presented better performance, over the mechanical, considering grading quality and fruits post-harvest quality. However, the electronically equipment must be constantly monitored to achieve efficiency and investment return. On the other side, for mechanical equipment it will be necessary to review the actual system of size grading, in order to follow the fresh tomato quality standards.