A nova Jericó maldita: um estudo sobre a Colônia de Iguá em Itaboraí/RJ (1935-1953)

O objetivo da pesquisa que resultou nesta dissertação consiste na análise sobre as origens do primeiro leprosário fluminense, a Colônia de Iguá, em Itaboraí, Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Busco privilegiar não só a análise desta "cidade em miniatura" tal como se pretendeu constituir um leprosário e sua estrutura mas também os impactos político-sociais ocorridos com sua fixação em um município que alimentou, durante a primeira metade do século XX, a ideia de que poderia recuperar a situação de pujança econômica e política que viveu entre os séculos XVIII e XIX, quando ocupou importante papel na economia fluminense e brasileira. Nesta análise focalizamos o movimento de resistência contra a instalação da Colônia neste município originada por aqueles que acreditavam que o leprosário iria prejudicar o reflorescimento da região, bem como as disputas políticas envolvidas em sua fixação na cidade. Também consideramos os relatos de ex-internos do antigo leprosário sobre a experiência do viver em uma colônia de atingidos pela lepra. Algumas de suas memórias foram incorporadas ao trabalho em nossa tentativa de relatar o cotidiano de um sistema que os segregou pela força do ato de internar compulsoriamente. Os marcos cronológicos da pesquisa se referem, respectivamente, ao ano de 1935, quando foi lançada a pedra fundamental para construção da Colônia de Iguá e que é também um período marcado pelo início do Plano Nacional de Combate à Lepra. Tal Plano representou uma aceleração na construção e modernização de instituições dessa natureza em todo país e marcou um momento de consolidação do internamento como profilaxia dos doentes. Como marco final, estabelecemos o ano de 1953 quando a Colônia Tavares de Macedo, como o Iguá ficou denominado a partir de 1942 recebe o novo sistema de abastecimento de água, evidenciando a aliança entre a instituição e o poder local na luta por melhorias do sistema de serviços públicos do município e, portanto, evidenciando a falsa questão de que a presença da Colônia iria prejudicar o município.

Qual é o risco do consumo combinado de bebidas energéticas e etanol? Efeitos comportamentais em camundongos adolescentes

O uso combinado de etanol e bebidas energéticas tem aumentado entre adolescentes. Além disso, estudos epidemiológicos indicam que o co-uso aumenta a probabilidade de consumo abusivo e dependência de etanol. Apesar disso, pouco se sabe sobre as consequências neurocomportamentais da co-exposição no cérebro adolescente. Este estudo tem como objetivo avaliar o curso temporal dos efeitos agudos da exposição à bebida energética e/ou etanol na atividade motora e ansiedade no teste de campo aberto, como também, os efeitos agudos ou prolongados sobre aprendizagem/memória e coordenação motora em camundongos adolescentes. Camundongos Suíços foram divididos em 4 grupos: bebidas energéticas e etanol, bebida energética, etanol e água. Três estudos separados foram conduzidos para avaliar cada um dos objetivos específicos deste trabalho. No primeiro estudo, realizado em PN40, os animais receberam a administração de bebida energética (8 ml/kg) e/ou etanol (4 g/kg) por gavagem e após 55 minutos foram submetidos ao teste do campo aberto (sessão 1). Outras duas sessões foram realizadas em sequência usando a metade da dose inicial (sessão 2 e 3). Nos estudos 2 e 3, estudamos os efeitos agudos (PN40) e crônicos (exposição de PN30-40) sobre o teste de esquiva passiva (0,3 mA, 3 s) e sobre o desempenho no teste do cilíndro giratório (sessão de treinamento e após 1 e 3 horas da gavagem das drogas). Em ambos os casos, a dose de bebida energética (8 ml/kg) e/ou etanol (4 g/kg) foi administrada. No teste da esquiva passiva, as sessões de treino e retenção foram realizadas 1 e 24 horas após a administração da droga, respectivamente. No teste do Rotarod, cada sessão foi constituída por 5 tentativas em modelo de aceleramento contínuo (4 a 40 rpm/min em uma tentativa de 2 min). Os nossos dados indicam que a exposição concomitante a bebida energética potencializa o efeito de hiperatividade induzido pelo etanol, como também, gera uma resposta ansiogênica no teste do campo aberto. A exposição aguda ao etanol induz déficit de memória/aprendizagem que não é revertida pela BE. A co-exposição aguda a bebida energética e etanol prolongou incoordenação motora induzida pelo etanol. No entanto, a bebda energética reverteu o comprometimento da coordenação motora gerada pela exposição crônica de etanol em camundongos fêmeas. O presente estudo fornece evidência experimental de que bebida energética e etanol interagem durante a adolescência, resultando em padrões de comportamento que poderiam aumentar o risco de desenvolvimento de abuso ou dependência de etanol. Além disso, os dados indicaram que a exposição aguda à bebida energética não atenuou as consequências negativas geradas pela etanol no desempenho do motor e cognitivo.

The early life history of swordfish (Xiphias gladius) in the western North Atlantic

Lengths and ages of sword-fish (Xiphias gladius) estimated from increments on otoliths of larvae collected in the Caribbean Sea, Florida Straits, and off the southeastern United States, indicated two growth phases. Larvae complete yolk and oil globule absorption 5 to 6 days after hatching (DAH). Larvae <13 mm preserved standard length (PSL) grow slowly (~0.3 mm/d); larvae from 13 to 115 mm PSL grow rapidly (~6 mm/d). The acceleration in growth rate at 13 days follows an abrupt (within 3 days) change in diet, and in jaw and alimentary canal structure. The diet of swordfish larvae is limited. Larvae <8 mm PSL from the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and off the southeastern United States eat exclusively copepods, primarily of one genus, Corycaeus. Larvae 9 to 11 mm eat copepods and chaetognaths; larvae >11 mm eat exclusively neustonic fish larvae. This diet indicates that young larvae <11 mm occupy the near-surface pelagia, whereas, older and longer larvae are neustonic. Spawning dates for larvae collected in various regions of the western North Atlantic, along with the abundance and spatial distribution of the youngest larvae, indicate that spawning peaks in three seasons and in five regions. Swordfish spawn in the Caribbean Sea, or possibly to the east, in winter, and in the western Gulf of Mexico in spring. Elsewhere swordfish spawn year-round, but spawning peaks in the spring in the north-central Gulf of Mexico, in the summer off southern Florida, and in the spring and early summer off the southeastern United States. The western Gulf Stream frontal zone is the focus of spawning off the southeastern coast of the United States, whereas spawning in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be focused in the vicinity of the Gulf Loop Current. Larvae may use the Gulf of Mexico and the outer continental shelf off the east coast of the United States as nursery areas. Some larvae may be transported northward, but trans-Atlantic transport of larvae is unlikely.

ROBOT DYNAMIC CONTROL INSTABILITIES.

The authors demonstrate that a widely proposed method of robot dynamic control can be inherently unstable, due to an algebraic feedback loop condition causing an ill-posed feedback system. By focussing on the concept of ill-posedness a necessary and sufficient condition is derived for instability in robot manipulator systems which incorporate online acceleration cross-coupling control. Also demonstrated is a quasilinear multivariable control framework useful for assessing the robustness of this type of control when the instability condition is not obeyed.

Seismic performance of geomembrane placed on a slope in a MSW landfill cell -A centrifuge study

Geomembranes are one of the most commonly used geosynthetics in landfill liner systems. They retain the leachate produced by the waste and prevent leakage. Geomembranes may experience harsh environmental conditions such as extreme temperatures or earthquake loading. Earthquake loading can be an extreme loading case for landfills located in seismic regions. This study, based on dynamic centrifuge testing, investigates the effects of simulated earthquake loading on the tension experienced bythe geomembrane on a landfill slope. The landfill modeled in the dynamic centrifuge test was a municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill cell with a single geomembrane-clay liner system (45° side slope and 10 m slope length). The paper shows that moderate earthquake loading (base acceleration between 0.1g to 0.2g) can result in transient increases of around 20% in geomembrane tension, with permanent tension increases of around 5%.

Active roll control of an experimental articulated vehicle

A new experimental articulated vehicle with computer-controlled suspensions is used to investigate the benefits of active roll control for heavy vehicles. The mechanical hardware, the instrumentation, and the distributed control architecture are detailed. A simple roll-plane model is developed and validated against experimental data, and used to design a controller based on lateral acceleration feedback. The controller is implemented and tested on the experimental vehicle. By tilting both the tractor drive axle and the trailer inwards, substantial reductions in normalized lateral load transfer are obtained, both in steady state and transient conditions. Power requirements are also considered. © IMechE 2005.

Adjoint linearised Euler solver in the frequency domain for jet noise modelling

The paper is devoted to extending the new efficient frequency-domain method of adjoint Green's function calculation to curvilinear multi-block RANS domains for middle and farfield sound computations. Numerical details of the method such as grids, boundary conditions and convergence acceleration are discussed. Two acoustic source models are considered in conjunction with the method and acoustic modelling results are presented for a benchmark low-Reynolds-number jet case.

An experimental study of unsteady separated shock wave boundary layer interactions

An experimental investigation of the unsteady interaction between a turbulent boundary layer and a normal shock wave of strength M∞ = 1.4 subject to periodic forcing in a parallel walled duct has been conducted. Emphasis has been placed on the mechanism by which changes in the global flow field influence the local interaction structure. Static pressure measurements and high speed Schlieren images of the unsteady interaction have been obtained. The pressure rise across the interaction and the appearance of the local SBLI structure have been observed to vary during the cycle of periodic shock wave motion. The magnitude of the pressure rise across the interaction is found to be related to the relative Mach number of the unsteady shock wave as it undergoes periodic motion. Variations in the upstream Influence of the interaction are sensitive to the magnitude and direction of shock wave velocity and acceleration and it is proposed that a viscous lag exists between the point of boundary layer separation and the shock wave position. Further work exploring the implications of these findings is proposed, including studies of the variation in position of the points of boundary layer separation and reattachment.

Implementation of semi-active damping on a tri-axle heavy-vehicle suspension

A semi-active truck damper was developed in conjunction with a commercial shock absorber manufacturer. A linearized damper model was developed for control system design purposes. Open- and closed-loop damper force tracking control was implemented, with tests showing that an open-loop approach gave the best compromise between response speed and accuracy. A hardware-in-the-loop test facility was used to investigate performance of the damper when combined with a simulated quarter-car model. The input to the vehicle model was a set of randomly generated road profiles, each profile traversed at an appropriate speed. Modified skyhook damping tests showed a simultaneous improvement over the optimum passive case of 13 per cent in vertical body acceleration and 8 per cent in dynamic tyre forces. Full-scale vehicle tests of the damper on a heavy tri-axle trailer were carried out. Implementation of modified skyhook damping yielded a simultaneous improvement over the optimum passive case of 8 per cent in vertical body acceleration and 8 per cent in dynamic tyre forces. © IMechE 2008.

TOPS (Task optimization in the presence of signal-dependent noise) model

This paper proposes a movement trajectory planning model, which is a maximum task achievement model in which signal-dependent noise is added to the movement command. In the proposed model, two optimization criteria are combined, maximum task achievement and minimum energy consumption. The proposed model has the feature that the end-point boundary conditions for position, velocity, and acceleration need not be prespecified. Consequently, the method can be applied not only to the simple point-to-point movement, but to any task. In the method in this paper, the hand trajectory is derived by a psychophysical experiment and a numerical experiment for the case in which the target is not stationary, but is a moving region. It is shown that the trajectory predicted from the minimum jerk model or the minimum torque change model differs considerably from the results of the psychophysical experiment. But the trajectory predicted from the maximum task achievement model shows good qualitative agreement with the hand trajectory obtained from the psychophysical experiment. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Optimisation of a piezoelectric system for energy harvesting from traffic vibrations

Piezoelectric systems are viewed as a promising approach to energy harvesting from environmental vibrations. The energy harvested from real vibration sources is usually difficult to estimate analytically. Therefore, it is hard to optimise the associated energy harvesting system. This work investigates the optimisation of a piezoelectric cantilever system using a genetic algorithm based approach with numerical simulations. The genetic algorithm globally considers the effects of each parameter to produce an optimal frequency response to scavenge more energy from the real vibrations while the conventional sinusoidal based method can only optimise the resistive load for a given resonant frequency. Experimental acceleration data from the vibrations of a vehicle-excited manhole cover demonstrates that the optimised harvester automatically selects the right frequency and also synchronously optimises the damper and the resistive load. This method shows great potential for optimizing the energy harvesting systems with real vibration data. ©2009 IEEE.

An accelerated 3D Navier-Stokes solver for flows in turbomachines

A new three-dimensional Navier-Stokes solver for flows in turbomachines has been developed. The new solver is based on the latest version of the Denton codes, but has been implemented to run on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) instead of the traditional Central Processing Unit (CPU). The change in processor enables an order-of-magnitude reduction in run-time due to the higher performance of the GPU. Scaling results for a 16 node GPU cluster are also presented, showing almost linear scaling for typical turbomachinery cases. For validation purposes, a test case consisting of a three-stage turbine with complete hub and casing leakage paths is described. Good agreement is obtained with previously published experimental results. The simulation runs in less than 10 minutes on a cluster with four GPUs. Copyright © 2009 by ASME.

SBLOCK: A framework for efficient stencil-based PDE solvers on multi-core platforms

We present a new software framework for the implementation of applications that use stencil computations on block-structured grids to solve partial differential equations. A key feature of the framework is the extensive use of automatic source code generation which is used to achieve high performance on a range of leading multi-core processors. Results are presented for a simple model stencil running on Intel and AMD CPUs as well as the NVIDIA GT200 GPU. The generality of the framework is demonstrated through the implementation of a complete application consisting of many different stencil computations, taken from the field of computational fluid dynamics. © 2010 IEEE.

Shock transmission and eigenvalue veering within a coupled system.

The operation of dynamical systems in harsh environments requires continuous monitoring. Internal sensors may be used to monitor the conditions in real time. A typical example is the sensor and electronic components used in space structures which, especially during launch, are subject to huge g force. The paper will present an experimental and theoretical study on a simplified model used to analyze the possible cause of high acceleration on the enclosed sensors and equipments due to impulsive loading. The model system consists of two beams coupled using compliant connections. An impulse hammer excites one beam, and vibrations are transmitted to the indirectly driven beam. A theoretical model is developed using a Rayleigh-Ritz approach and validated using experimental results in both the frequency and time domains. Monto Carlo simulation was done with random masses positioned on the indirectly driven beam to determine the worst-case conditions for maximum peak acceleration. Highest acceleration levels were found when mode matching in the two beams led to veering behavior in the coupled modes. The results suggest guidelines for the detailed design of internal components of a structure exposed to shock loading from its environment. [The authors thank Schlumberger Cambridge Research for financial support.].

Flow of wet powder in a conical centrifugal filter-an analytical model

A one-dimensional analytical model is developed for the steady state, axisymmetric, slender flow of saturated powder in a rotating perforated cone. Both the powder and the fluid spin with the cone with negligible slip in the hoop direction. They migrate up the wall of the cone along a generator under centrifugal force, which also forces the fluid out of the cone through the powder layer and the porous wall. The flow thus evolves from an over-saturated paste at inlet into a nearly dry powder at outlet. The powder is treated as a Mohr-Coulomb granular solid of constant void fraction and permeability. The shear traction at the wall is assumed to be velocity and pressure dependent. The fluid is treated as Newtonian viscous. The model provides the position of the colour line (the transition from over- to under-saturation) and the flow velocity and thickness profiles over the cone. Surface tension effects are assumed negligible compared to the centrifugal acceleration. Two alternative conditions are considered for the flow structure at inlet: fully settled powder at inlet, and progressive settling of an initially homogeneous slurry. The position of the colour line is found to be similar for these two cases over a wide range of operating conditions. Dominant dimensionless groups are identified which control the position of the colour line in a continuous conical centrifuge. Experimental observations of centrifuges used in the sugar industry provide preliminary validation of the model. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.