Dimensional analysis of soil properties after treatment with the rotary paraplow, a new conservationist tillage tool

This study examined a new conservation tillage tool, the rotary paraplow. Emphasis was placed on evaluating the tool's conservation potential using dimensionless graph analysis. The dynamic conditions of the soil were investigated in terms of physical soil properties. Having determined the variables to be measured, dimensional analysis was used to plan the experiments. Two variations were considered for each dependent variable (linear speed, working depth, and rotation velocity), totaling eight treatments, allotting in each an experimental strip with five data collection points. This arrangement totaled 16 experimental strips, with 80 data collection points for all variables. The rotary paraplow generates a trapezoidal furrow for planting with a very wide bottom and narrower at the top. The volumetric subsoiling action generates cracks on the sides of the band. Because of their specific geometry the blades of rotary paraplow generate a soil failure according to its natural crack angle, optimizing the energy use, while preserving the natural soil properties. Results showed the conservation character of the rotary paraplow, capable of breaking up clods for planting without changing the original physical soil properties.

Self-Organizing Maps as a New Tool for Classification of Plants at Lower Hierarchical Levels

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Molecular hybridization: A useful tool in the design of new drug prototypes

Molecular hybridization is a new concept in drug design and development based on the combination of pharmacophoric moieties of different bioactive substances to produce a new hyrid compound with improved affinity and efficacy, when compared to the parent drugs. Additionally, this strategy can results in compounds presenting modified selectivity profile, different and/or dual modes of action and reduced undesired side effects. So, in this described several example of different strategies for drug design, discovery and pharmacomodulation focused on new innovative hybrid compounds presenting analgesic, anti-inflammatory, platelet anti-aggregating, anti-infections, anticancer, cardio- and neuroactive properties.

Integration in new product development: Case study in a large Brazilian high-technology company

Proficiency in management activities undertaken in product development processes is regarded as a key competitive advantage for companies, particularly for high-tech industrial firms, which benefit from the important competitiveness factor of launching products with a differentiated technological content. This paper's objective was to identify, through case study, practices for integration between the roles of R & D with others involved in product development in a large Brazilian company of industrial automation. The results suggest some management practices to improve the integration in new products development, such as the use of employees from marketing with knowledge and experience previously gained from R & D activities and uses the heavyweight product manager to solve synchronization problems between product and technology development. © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios.

TF-Test modified: new diagnostic tool for human enteroparasitosis

Intestinal parasitosis is highly prevalent worldwide, being among the main causes of illness and death in humans. Currently, laboratory diagnosis of the intestinal parasites is accomplished through manual technical procedures, mostly developed decades ago, which justifies the development of more sensitive and practical techniques. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to develop, evaluate, and validate a new parasitological technique referred to as TF-Test Modified, in comparison to three conventional parasitological techniques: TF-Test Conventional; Rugai, Mattos & Brisola; and Helm Test/Kato-Katz. For this realization, we collected stool samples from 457 volunteers located in endemic areas of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, and statistically compared the techniques. Intestinal protozoa and helminths were detected qualitatively in 42.23% (193/457) of the volunteers by TF-Test Modified technique, against 36.76% (168/457) by TF-Test Conventional, 5.03% (23/457) by Helm Test/Kato-Katz, and 4.16% (19/457) by Rugai, Mattos & Brisola. Furthermore, the new technique presented “almost perfect kappa” agreement in all evaluated parameters with 95% (P < 0.05) of estimation. The current study showed that the TF-Test Modified technique can be comprehensively used in the diagnosis of intestinal protozoa and helminths, and its greater diagnostic sensitivity should help improving the quality of laboratory diagnosis, population surveys, and control of intestinal parasites.

Stochastic Partial Budgeting: A New Look at an Old Tool

Farm business managers are constantly making adjustments in their businesses for smoother operations and profitability. Many times, these choices involve actions to enhance the financial return of the farm business; while other times these decisions are made out of necessity to minimize the effects of unfavorable conditions or events such as drought or changes in the market conditions. Some of these decisions are relatively simple, requiring making choices among alternatives within an enterprise; while others are complex involving a total overhaul of the business and its enterprises. Alternative choices within an individual enterprise can have a differential impact on farm profitability. Therefore, making the best decision may make the difference between profit or loss for that enterprise. Partial budgeting is very useful in making such changes within an enterprise of a farm.

Brazilian psychiatric brain bank: a new contribution tool to network studies

There is an urgent need for expanding the number of brain banks serving psychiatric research. We describe here the Psychiatric Disorders arm of the Brain Bank of the Brazilian Aging Brain Study Group (Psy-BBBABSG), which is focused in bipolar disorder (BD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Our protocol was designed to minimize limitations faced by previous initiatives, and to enable design-based neurostereological analyses. The Psy-BBBABSG first milestone is the collection of 10 brains each of BD and OCD patients, and matched controls. The brains are sourced from a population-based autopsy service. The clinical and psychiatric assessments were done by an expert team including psychiatrists, through an informant. One hemisphere was perfused-fixed to render an optimal fixation for conducting neurostereological studies. The other hemisphere was comprehensively dissected and frozen for molecular studies. In 20 months, we collected 36 brains. A final report was completed for 14 cases: 3 BDs, 4 major depressive disorders, 1 substance use disorder, 1 mood disorder NOS, 3 obsessive compulsive spectrum symptoms, 1 OCD and 1 schizophrenia. The majority were male (64%), and the average age at death was 67.2 +/- 9.0 years. The average postmortem interval was 16 h. Three matched controls were collected. The pilot stage confirmed that the protocols are well fitted to reach our goals. Our unique autopsy source makes possible to collect a fairly number of high quality cases in a short time. Such a collection offers an additional to the international research community to advance the understanding on neuropsychiatric diseases.

Centrifuge Modeling of Sandy Slopes

Slope failure occurs in many areas throughout the world and it becomes an important problem when it interferes with human activity, in which disasters provoke loss of life and property damage. In this research we investigate the slope failure through the centrifuge modeling, where a reduced-scale model, N times smaller than the full-scale (prototype), is used whereas the acceleration is increased by N times (compared with the gravity acceleration) to preserve the stress and the strain behavior. The aims of this research “Centrifuge modeling of sandy slopes” are in extreme synthesis: 1) test the reliability of the centrifuge modeling as a tool to investigate the behavior of a sandy slope failure; 2) understand how the failure mechanism is affected by changing the slope angle and obtain useful information for the design. In order to achieve this scope we arranged the work as follows: Chapter one: centrifuge modeling of slope failure. In this chapter we provide a general view about the context in which we are working on. Basically we explain what is a slope failure, how it happens and which are the tools available to investigate this phenomenon. Afterwards we introduce the technology used to study this topic, that is the geotechnical centrifuge. Chapter two: testing apparatus. In the first section of this chapter we describe all the procedures and facilities used to perform a test in the centrifuge. Then we explain the characteristics of the soil (Nevada sand), like the dry unit weight, water content, relative density, and its strength parameters (c,φ), which have been calculated in laboratory through the triaxial test. Chapter three: centrifuge tests. In this part of the document are presented all the results from the tests done in centrifuge. When we talk about results we refer to the acceleration at failure for each model tested and its failure surface. In our case study we tested models with the same soil and geometric characteristics but different angles. The angles tested in this research were: 60°, 75° and 90°. Chapter four: slope stability analysis. We introduce the features and the concept of the software: ReSSA (2.0). This software allows us to calculate the theoretical failure surfaces of the prototypes. Then we show in this section the comparisons between the experimental failure surfaces of the prototype, traced in the laboratory, and the one calculated by the software. Chapter five: conclusion. The conclusion of the research presents the results obtained in relation to the two main aims, mentioned above.

MetaVaccinology: a new vaccine discovery tool

In the last decade, the reverse vaccinology approach shifted the paradigm of vaccine discovery from conventional culture-based methods to high-throughput genome-based approaches for the development of recombinant protein-based vaccines against pathogenic bacteria. Besides reaching its main goal of identifying new vaccine candidates, this new procedure produced also a huge amount of molecular knowledge related to them. In the present work, we explored this knowledge in a species-independent way and we performed a systematic in silico molecular analysis of more than 100 protective antigens, looking at their sequence similarity, domain composition and protein architecture in order to identify possible common molecular features. This meta-analysis revealed that, beside a low sequence similarity, most of the known bacterial protective antigens shared structural/functional Pfam domains as well as specific protein architectures. Based on this, we formulated the hypothesis that the occurrence of these molecular signatures can be predictive of possible protective properties of other proteins in different bacterial species. We tested this hypothesis in Streptococcus agalactiae and identified four new protective antigens. Moreover, in order to provide a second proof of the concept for our approach, we used Staphyloccus aureus as a second pathogen and identified five new protective antigens. This new knowledge-driven selection process, named MetaVaccinology, represents the first in silico vaccine discovery tool based on conserved and predictive molecular and structural features of bacterial protective antigens and not dependent upon the prediction of their sub-cellular localization.