Soursop seedlings: biomasses and biometric relations in different farming environments and substrates – Part II

ABSTRACT The quality of seedling is critical to obtain vigorous plants in the field. The present study aimed to assess biomasses and biometric relations of soursop seedlings. We used different substrates in protected environments. The experiment was performed at the Universidade Estadual do Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) (State University of Mato Grosso do Sul). Five farming environments were developed in greenhouses: one covered with low-density polyethylene film (LDPE), another with with polyethylene and heat-reflective cloth under film under 50% shading in aluminized color, monofilament cloth under 50% shading in black, thermo-reflective cloth under 50% shading in aluminized color, and an environment covered with bacuri coconut straw. Substrates were made of manure, humus, cassava branches and vermiculite at different proportions. Each of them varying from 25%, 33.3%, 50% and 75% in mixture combination. Each environment was considered an experiment. A completely randomized design was adopted and later a joint analysis of them. Agricultural greenhouse covered with LDPE and thermo-reflective cloths under 50% of shading, proportionated seedlings with greater biomass. Substrates containing manure are the most suitable for soursop seedlings. High percentages of earthworm humus produce low quality soursop seedlings. Soursop seedlings had a Dickson’s quality index around 0.335. The greenhouse covered only with LDPE film did not produce high quality seedlings.

Conduta terapêutica atual no adenocarcinoma da cárdia e da junção esofagogástrica

Adenocarcinomas of the cardia and gastroesophageal junction are peculiar entities with three different origins, which differ somewhat from other adenocarcinomas of the stomach in their clinical presentation and pathogenesis, and have a poorer prognosis. In this article the authors reviewed definitions, incidence and epidemiology, etiologic factors, genetic implications, clinical presentation, diagnosis, staging and treatment, with emphasis on the surgical approach, discussing the current management of these cancers. The prognostic factors related specifically to the cardia cancers are: esophageal invasion greater than 3cm, microscopic residual tumor and wall penetration (>T2). Preoperative workup should include computed tomography, and endoscopic ultrasonography and laparoscopy when available. Preoperative recognition of T3/ T4/N2 lesions should indicate inclusion in neo-adjuvant protocols whenever possible. The authors present the results of 46 resected cases of adenocarcinomas of the cardia and GE junction of the Instituto Nacional do Câncer- Brazil (1981-1995). Cure was intended in 29 and palliation in 17 patients. The most common type of resection was total gastrectomy with abdominal esophagectomy (28 cases). Morbidity (major and minor) occurred in 50% of the patients. The main causes were of respiratory origin and fistulas (19.6% each). Death occurred in 44% of the patients with fistula. Postoperative death until the 30th day occurred in 17.24% of the curative cases and in 23.52% of the palliative ones. The median survival time was 68.5 months for stage I, 25 months for stage II, 31 months for stage III and 12.5 months for stage IV diseases. The median survival time was 8 months for palliation and 28.5 months for cure. No long-term survival was obtained with the palliative group, whereas 25% survived five years of more in the curative group. The authors conclude that the surgical approach should be the one the surgeon feels more comfortable with. Complete removal of the disease proved by frozen section, splenectomy and D2 lymphadenectomy should be the standard therapy with curative intent.

Adenoma viloso da ampola de Vater

The aim of this paper is to present a case of a 37-year-old female patient with a benign tumor of the Ampulla of Vater and a brief review of the literature. The patient presented with progressive obstructive jaundice and weigth loss due to the presence of two adenomas of the second portion of duodenum. Laboratory tests confirmed the presence of obstruction of the biliary tree. Ultrasound and CT scan of the abdomen revealed bile duct dilatation. ERCP showed a tumor at the site of the Ampulla of Vater. The biopsies revealed tubular adenoma. She was submitted to local resection of the tumors and sphincteroplasty, since the frozen biopsy at the time of surgery showed no malignancy. During the post-operative follow-up she presented recurrence of symptoms. An upper GI endoscopy revealed a tumor at the Ampulla of Vater. She was then submitted to Whipple procedure with an uneventful recovery.

Leiomiossarcoma de jejuno

We describe a case of leiomyosarcoma of the jejunum in which abdominal computed tomography showed an intestinal tumor with a "sui generis" metalic artefact inside, which made us think of a benign disease (foreign body granuloma), because the patient lived in the rural area and he had a manioc flour mill, which is one the basic foods of the majority of the population of the north in Brazil. Because of the aspect of the tumor, we decided on a large scale resection, considering the possibility of a malignant tumor since we don't have frozen sections. This assured us of an adequate treatment for the tumor. This type of pathology should be remembered even though it only accounts for 0,2-2% of the intestinal tract tumors.

Tumor do apêndice vermiforme

Appendiceal tumors are rare and usually presented as acute appendicitis. They are incidentally discovered at an emergency surgery, in which case the decision-making is very difficult. The purpose of this report is discuss to the most appropriate management for appendiceal tumors. A retrospective analysis of one case treated at HU-UEL was undertaken and the literature was reviewed. The conclusion is that frozen section should be done whenever the appendiceal findings are atypical. For appendiceal carcinoids greater than 2 cm and adenocarcinomas, a right hemicolectomy is recommended. Appendectomy is apropriate for patients whose carcinoid tumors are 1 cm in diameter or less and for carcinoid tumors between 1 cm and 2 cm without extensive lymphatic permeation and mesenteric invasion. Every case should be searched for synchronous tumors.

Improving strategic decision-making with simulation based decision support systems

Combating climate change is one of the key tasks of humanity in the 21st century. One of the leading causes is carbon dioxide emissions due to usage of fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources should be used instead of relying on oil, gas, and coal. In Finland a significant amount of energy is produced using wood. The usage of wood chips is expected to increase in the future significantly, over 60 %. The aim of this research is to improve understanding over the costs of wood chip supply chains. This is conducted by utilizing simulation as the main research method. The simulation model utilizes both agent-based modelling and discrete event simulation to imitate the wood chip supply chain. This thesis concentrates on the usage of simulation based decision support systems in strategic decision-making. The simulation model is part of a decision support system, which connects the simulation model to databases but also provides a graphical user interface for the decisionmaker. The main analysis conducted with the decision support system concentrates on comparing a traditional supply chain to a supply chain utilizing specialized containers. According to the analysis, the container supply chain is able to have smaller costs than the traditional supply chain. Also, a container supply chain can be more easily scaled up due to faster emptying operations. Initially the container operations would only supply part of the fuel needs of a power plant and it would complement the current supply chain. The model can be expanded to include intermodal supply chains as due to increased demand in the future there is not enough wood chips located close to current and future power plants.

Biopolttoaineen rinnakkaispolton kannattavuustarkastelu hiilipölypolttokattilassa Martinlaakso 2:ssa

Euroopan unionin asettamat tavoitteet kasvihuonepäästöjen vähennykselle johtavat vih-reämpään teknologiaan. Tämä diplomityö on teoreettinen tutkimus, joka käsittelee biopolt-toaineen rinnakkaispolton kannattavuutta Vantaan Energian Martinlaakso 2:sen hiilipöly-polttokattilassa. Työssä perehdytään viiteen eri biopolttoainevaihtoehtoon, joita tarkastellaan viidessä eri skenaariossa, jotka vastaavat: 10, 20, 30, 40 ja 50 % biopolttoaineen osuutta kattilassa tuo-tetusta energiasta. Skenaarioissa on pohdittu tarvittavia investointikustannuksia ja muutos-töitä hiilipölypolttokattilassa. Tutkimuksessa on huomioitu myös uusi isojen laitosten pääs-töjä koskeva direktiivi, kattilan oletettava käyttöikä sekä biopolttoaineiden tuet. Saaduista arvioista on lopuksi laskettu vuosittainen polttoainekohtainen kustannusarvio ja investoin-nin kannattavuusarvio. Tuloksista voidaan päätellä, että sahanpurun mahdollisimman suuri hyötykäyttö on kannat-tavaa. Mikäli halutaan käyttää suuria määriä biopolttoainetta, (yli 20 % tuotetusta energias-ta) ei sahanpuru ole varteenotettava vaihtoehto huonon saatavuutensa johdosta. Tällöin hakkeen kaasutuslaitos olisi paras ratkaisu, mutta laitoksen kannattavuus riippuu tulevista energiatuista. Ilman energiatukia sahanpurun hyötykäyttö on ainoa kannattava investointi.

Epidemiological evaluation of hepatic trauma victims undergoing surgery

Objective : to evaluate the epidemiological variables and diagnostic and therapeutic modalities related to hepatic trauma patients undergoing laparotomy in a public referral hospital in the metropolitan region of Vitória-ES. Methods : we conducted a retrospective study, reviewing charts of trauma patients with liver injuries, whether isolated or in association with other organs, who underwent exploratory laparotomy, from January 2011 to December 2013. Results : We studied 392 patients, 107 of these with liver injury. The male: female ratio was 6.6 : 1 and the mean age was 30.12 years. Penetrating liver trauma occurred in 78.5% of patients, mostly with firearms. Associated injuries occurred in 86% of cases and intra-abdominal injuries were more common in penetrating trauma (p <0.01). The most commonly used operative technique was hepatorrhaphy and damage control surgery was applied in 6.5% of patients. The average amounts of blood products used were 6.07 units of packed red blood cells and 3.01 units of fresh frozen plasma. The incidence of postoperative complications was 29.9%, the most frequent being infectious, including pneumonia, peritonitis and intra-abdominal abscess. The survival rate of patients suffering from blunt trauma was 60%, and penetrating trauma, 87.5% (p <0.05). Conclusion : despite technological advances in diagnosis and treatment, mortality rates in liver trauma remain high, especially in patients suffering from blunt trauma in relation to penetrating one.

Design and characterization of large area position sensitive radiation detectors

Planar, large area, position sensitive silicon detectors are widely utilized in high energy physics research and in medical, computed tomography (CT). This thesis describes author's research work relating to development of such detector components. The key motivation and objective for the research work has been the development of novel, position sensitive detectors improving the performance of the instruments they are intended for. Silicon strip detectors are the key components of barrel-shaped tracking instruments which are typically the innermost structures of high energy physics experimental stations. Particle colliders such as the former LEP collider or present LHC produce particle collisions and the silicon strip detector based trackers locate the trajectories of particles emanating from such collisions. Medical CT has become a regular part of everyday medical care in all developed countries. CT scanning enables x-ray imaging of all parts of the human body with an outstanding structural resolution and contrast. Brain, chest and abdomen slice images with a resolution of 0.5 mm are possible and latest CT machines are able to image whole human heart between heart beats. The two application areas are presented shortly and the radiation detection properties of planar silicon detectors are discussed. Fabrication methods and preamplifier electronics of the planar detectors are presented. Designs of the developed, large area silicon detectors are presented and measurement results of the key operating parameters are discussed. Static and dynamic performance of the developed silicon strip detectors are shown to be very satisfactory for experimental physics applications. Results relating to the developed, novel CT detector chips are found to be very promising for further development and all key performance goals are met.

Experimental poisoning by Baccharis megapotamica var. weirii in buffalo

Five male 6-8 month-old Murrah buffalo calves were orally dosed with the fresh aerial parts of Baccharis megapotamica var. weirii at doses of 1, 3, 4, 5 and 10g/kg body weight (bw) (~1-10mg macrocyclic trichothecenes/kg/bw). The B. megapotamica used for the experiment was harvested on a farm where a recent spontaneous outbreak of poisoning caused by such plant had occurred. Clinical signs appeared 4-20 hours and 4 buffaloes died 18-49 hours after the ingestion of the plant. Clinical signs were apathy, anorexia, and watery diarrhea, fever, colic, drooling, muscle tremors, restlessness, laborious breathing and ruminal atony, and dehydration. The most consistent gross findings were restricted to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract consisted of varying degrees of edema and reddening of the mucosa of the forestomach. Histopathological findings consisted of varying degrees of necrosis of the epithelial lining of the forestomach and of lymphocytes within lymphoid organs and aggregates. Fibrin thrombi were consistently found in sub-mucosal vessels of the forestomach and in the lumen of hepatic sinusoids. It is suggested that dehydration, septicemia and disseminated intravascular coagulation participate in the pathogenesis of the intoxication and play a role as a cause of death. A subsample of B. megapotamica var. weirii was frozen-dried and ground and analyzed using UHPLC (Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography) with high resolution Time of Flight mass spectrometry and tandem mass spectrometry, it was shown that the plant material contained at least 51 different macrocyclic trichothecenes at a total level of 1.1-1.2mg/g. About 15-20% of the total trichothecenes contents was found to be monosaccharide conjugates, with two thirds of these being glucose conjugates and one third constituted by six aldopentose conjugates (probably xylose), which has never been reported in the literature.

Non-Markovian dynamics and quantum information probes

This Thesis discusses the phenomenology of the dynamics of open quantum systems marked by non-Markovian memory effects. Non-Markovian open quantum systems are the focal point of a flurry of recent research aiming to answer, e.g., the following questions: What is the characteristic trait of non-Markovian dynamical processes that discriminates it from forgetful Markovian dynamics? What is the microscopic origin of memory in quantum dynamics, and how can it be controlled? Does the existence of memory effects open new avenues and enable accomplishments that cannot be achieved with Markovian processes? These questions are addressed in the publications forming the core of this Thesis with case studies of both prototypical and more exotic models of open quantum systems. In the first part of the Thesis several ways of characterizing and quantifying non-Markovian phenomena are introduced. Their differences are then explored using a driven, dissipative qubit model. The second part of the Thesis focuses on the dynamics of a purely dephasing qubit model, which is used to unveil the origin of non-Markovianity for a wide class of dynamical models. The emergence of memory is shown to be strongly intertwined with the structure of the spectral density function, as further demonstrated in a physical realization of the dephasing model using ultracold quantum gases. Finally, as an application of memory effects, it is shown that non- Markovian dynamical processes facilitate a novel phenomenon of timeinvariant discord, where the total quantum correlations of a system are frozen to their initial value. Non-Markovianity can also be exploited in the detection of phase transitions using quantum information probes, as shown using the physically interesting models of the Ising chain in a transverse field and a Coulomb chain undergoing a structural phase transition.

Adaptive Routing Approaches for Networked Many-Core Systems

Through advances in technology, System-on-Chip design is moving towards integrating tens to hundreds of intellectual property blocks into a single chip. In such a many-core system, on-chip communication becomes a performance bottleneck for high performance designs. Network-on-Chip (NoC) has emerged as a viable solution for the communication challenges in highly complex chips. The NoC architecture paradigm, based on a modular packet-switched mechanism, can address many of the on-chip communication challenges such as wiring complexity, communication latency, and bandwidth. Furthermore, the combined benefits of 3D IC and NoC schemes provide the possibility of designing a high performance system in a limited chip area. The major advantages of 3D NoCs are the considerable reductions in average latency and power consumption. There are several factors degrading the performance of NoCs. In this thesis, we investigate three main performance-limiting factors: network congestion, faults, and the lack of efficient multicast support. We address these issues by the means of routing algorithms. Congestion of data packets may lead to increased network latency and power consumption. Thus, we propose three different approaches for alleviating such congestion in the network. The first approach is based on measuring the congestion information in different regions of the network, distributing the information over the network, and utilizing this information when making a routing decision. The second approach employs a learning method to dynamically find the less congested routes according to the underlying traffic. The third approach is based on a fuzzy-logic technique to perform better routing decisions when traffic information of different routes is available. Faults affect performance significantly, as then packets should take longer paths in order to be routed around the faults, which in turn increases congestion around the faulty regions. We propose four methods to tolerate faults at the link and switch level by using only the shortest paths as long as such path exists. The unique characteristic among these methods is the toleration of faults while also maintaining the performance of NoCs. To the best of our knowledge, these algorithms are the first approaches to bypassing faults prior to reaching them while avoiding unnecessary misrouting of packets. Current implementations of multicast communication result in a significant performance loss for unicast traffic. This is due to the fact that the routing rules of multicast packets limit the adaptivity of unicast packets. We present an approach in which both unicast and multicast packets can be efficiently routed within the network. While suggesting a more efficient multicast support, the proposed approach does not affect the performance of unicast routing at all. In addition, in order to reduce the overall path length of multicast packets, we present several partitioning methods along with their analytical models for latency measurement. This approach is discussed in the context of 3D mesh networks.

Hakkeen kuivaus ennen varastointia ja biopolttoaineterminaalin suunnittelu

Lempäälään aiotaan rakentaa uusi kaukolämpölaitos, jossa polttoaineena käytettäisiin haketta. Nykyään Lempäälässä tuotetaan kaukolämpöä maakaasulla, jonka käyttämisestä halutaan siirtyä käyttämään lähialueilta saatavaa biopolttoainetta. Tässä työssä halutaan selvittää, mitä hyötyjä saataisiin hakkeen koneellisesta kuivauksesta. Työn toisena tavoitteena on suunnitella ja pohtia biopolttoaineterminaalin rakentamista sekä käsitellä hakkeen varastointia yleensä. Työssä tutustutaan hakkeeseen aiheesta kertovan kirjallisuuden avulla. Työssä on myös laskettu hakkeen kuivauksesta saatavia hyötyjä hakkeen lämpöarvoon sekä energiatiheyteen. Erityisesti perehdytään metsätähdehakkeeseen, rankahakkeeseen, kuorihakkeeseen sekä sahanpuruun. Laskelmien tuloksista on havaittu, että suurin hyöty hakkeen energiatiheyden parantumisessa saadaan kun hake kuivataan 35 % kosteuspitoisuuteen. Tämän jälkeen energiatiheyden paraneminen tapahtuu hitaammin. Hakkeen kuivauksesta saadaan myös muita hyötyjä kuin energiatiheyden paraneminen. Kuivan hakkeen käsittelyn ja varastoinnin on havaittu olevan vaivattomampaa kuin märän hakkeen. Biopolttoaineterminaalin ja voimalaitoksen tulisi sijaita rinnakkain, jotta hakkeen kuivauksesta saadaan mahdollisimman kustannustehokasta. Näin ollen syntyisi myös säästöjä hakkeen kuljetuksen suhteen. Biopolttoaineterminaalin rakentamista varten tarvittaisiin tilaa alustavien laskelmien perusteella noin yksi hehtaari. Työssä on myös laskettu biopolttoaineterminaalin rakentamisesta aiheutuvia kustannuksia sekä hakkeen kuljetuksesta koituvia logistiikka kustannuksia. Haketerminaalin ja voimalaitoksen sijaintia Lempäälässä on myös kartoitettu.

Comparison of two methods of tear sampling for protein quantification by Bradford method

The aim of this study was to compare two methods of tear sampling for protein quantification. Tear samples were collected from 29 healthy dogs (58 eyes) using Schirmer tear test (STT) strip and microcapillary tubes. The samples were frozen at -80ºC and analyzed by the Bradford method. Results were analyzed by Student's t test. The average protein concentration and standard deviation from tears collected with microcapillary tube were 4.45mg/mL ±0.35 and 4,52mg/mL ±0.29 for right and left eyes respectively. The average protein concentration and standard deviation from tears collected with Schirmer Tear Test (STT) strip were and 54.5mg/mL ±0.63 and 54.15mg/mL ±0.65 to right and left eyes respectively. Statistically significant differences (p<0.001) were found between the methods. In the conditions in which this study was conducted, the average protein concentration obtained with the Bradford test from tear samples obtained by Schirmer Tear Test (STT) strip showed values higher than those obtained with microcapillary tube. It is important that concentration of tear protein pattern values should be analyzed according the method used to collect tear samples.