Tuning of modulation spectrum parameters for voice pathology detection

Acoustic parameters are frequently used to assess the presence of pathologies in human voice. Many of them have demonstrated to be useful but in some cases its results could be optimized by selecting appropriate working margins. In this study two indices, CIL and RALA, obtained from Modulation Spectra are described and tuned using different frame lengths and frequency ranges to maximize AUC in normal to pathological voice detection. After the tuning process, AUC reaches 0.96 and 0.95 values for CIL and RALA respectively representing an improvement of 16 % and 12 % at each case respect to the typical tuning based only on frame length selection.

Analysis of Cell Division and Elongation Underlying the Developmental Acceleration of Root Growth in Arabidopsis thaliana1

To investigate the relation between cell division and expansion in the regulation of organ growth rate, we used Arabidopsis thaliana primary roots grown vertically at 20°C with an elongation rate that increased steadily during the first 14 d after germination. We measured spatial profiles of longitudinal velocity and cell length and calculated parameters of cell expansion and division, including rates of local cell production (cells mm−1 h−1) and cell division (cells cell−1 h−1). Data were obtained for the root cortex and also for the two types of epidermal cell, trichoblasts and atrichoblasts. Accelerating root elongation was caused by an increasingly longer growth zone, while maximal strain rates remained unchanged. The enlargement of the growth zone and, hence, the accelerating root elongation rate, were accompanied by a nearly proportionally increased cell production. This increased production was caused by increasingly numerous dividing cells, whereas their rates of division remained approximately constant. Additionally, the spatial profile of cell division rate was essentially constant. The meristem was longer than generally assumed, extending well into the region where cells elongated rapidly. In the two epidermal cell types, meristem length and cell division rate were both very similar to that of cortical cells, and differences in cell length between the two epidermal cell types originated at the apex of the meristem. These results highlight the importance of controlling the number of dividing cells, both to generate tissues with different cell lengths and to regulate the rate of organ enlargement.

The neck region of the myosin motor domain acts as a lever arm to generate movement.

The myosin head consists of a globular catalytic domain that binds actin and hydrolyzes ATP and a neck domain that consists of essential and regulatory light chains bound to a long alpha-helical portion of the heavy chain. The swinging neck-level model assumes that a swinging motion of the neck relative to the catalytic domain is the origin of movement. This model predicts that the step size, and consequently the sliding velocity, are linearly related to the length of the neck. We have tested this point by characterizing a series of mutant Dictyostelium myosins that have different neck lengths. The 2xELCBS mutant has an extra binding site for essential light chain. The delta RLCBS mutant myosin has an internal deletion that removes the regulatory light chain binding site. The delta BLCBS mutant lacks both light chain binding sites. Wild-type myosin and these mutant myosins were subjected to the sliding filament in vitro motility assay. As expected, mutants with shorter necks move slower than wild-type myosin in vitro. Most significantly, a mutant with a longer neck moves faster than the wild type, and the sliding velocities of these myosins are linearly related to the neck length, as predicted by the swinging neck-lever model. A simple extrapolation to zero speed predicts that the fulcrum point is in the vicinity of the SH1-SH2 region in the catalytic domain.

Protein contact prediction using patterns of correlation

We describe a new method for using neural networks to predict residue contact pairs in a protein. The main inputs to the neural network are a set of 25 measures of correlated mutation between all pairs of residues in two windows of size 5 centered on the residues of interest. While the individual pair-wise correlations are a relatively weak predictor of contact, by training the network on windows of correlation the accuracy of prediction is significantly improved. The neural network is trained on a set of 100 proteins and then tested on a disjoint set of 1033 proteins of known structure. An average predictive accuracy of 21.7% is obtained taking the best L/2 predictions for each protein, where L is the sequence length. Taking the best L/10 predictions gives an average accuracy of 30.7%. The predictor is also tested on a set of 59 proteins from the CASP5 experiment. The accuracy is found to be relatively consistent across different sequence lengths, but to vary widely according to the secondary structure. Predictive accuracy is also found to improve by using multiple sequence alignments containing many sequences to calculate the correlations. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Effects of cation substitutions on the physical properties of M2M1T2O6 pyroxenes

In this PhD study, the effects of the cation substitutions on the physical properties of pyroxenes have been discussed. The results of this work extend the knowledge on pyroxenes with different chemical compositions. These properties might be used in the development of ceramic pigments, advanced materials and for the mineralogical phase identification. First of all, the crystallographic differences between Ge and Si pyroxenes have been examined. The structure of C2/c Ca rich Ge clinopyroxenes is very close to the low pressure C2/c structural configuration found in Ca-rich Si-pyroxenes. The shear of the unit cell is very similar, and the difference between a Ge end member and the corresponding Si-rich one is less than 1°. Instead, a remarkable difference exists between Ca-poor Si and Ge clinopyroxenes. First, Ca-poor Ge pyroxenes do not display a P21/c symmetry, but retain the C2/c symmetry; second, the observed C2/c structure shows, at room pressure, the configuration with highly kinked tetrahedral chains characteristic of the high pressure C2/c symmetry of Si Ca-poor pyroxenes. In orthopyroxenes, with Pbca symmetry, Ge-pyroxenes have volume larger than Si-pyroxenes. Samples along the system CaCoGe2O6 - CoCoGe2O6 have been synthesized at three different temperatures: 1050 °C, 1200 °C and 1250 °C. The aim of these solid state syntheses was to obtain a solid solution at ambient pressure, since the analogues Si-system needs high pressure. Unfortunately, very limited solution occurs because the structure forms of the two end member (high temperature for CaCoGe2O6 and high pressure CoCoGe2O6) are incompatible. The phase diagram of this system has been sketched and compared to that of Si. The cobalt end member (CoCoGe2O6) is stable at ambient pressure in two symmetries: at 1050 °C C2/c and 1200 °C Pbca. The impurity phase formed during these experiments is cobalt spinel. Raman spectroscopy has been used to investigate the vibrational properties of Ca-pyroxenes CaCoGe2O6, CaMgGe2O6, CaMgSi2O6 and CaCoSi2O6. A comparison between silicate and germanate pyroxenes shows significant changes in peak positions of the corresponding modes caused mainly by the difference of the Ge-Si atomic weight along with the distortion and compression of the coordination polyhedra. Red shift in Raman spectra of germanates has been calculated by a rough scale factor calculated by a simple harmonic oscillator model, considering the different bond lengths for 4-coordinated Si ~ 1.60- 1.65 Å vs Ge–O distance ~1.70 - 1.80 Å. The Raman spectra of CaMgGe2O6 and CaCoGe2O6 have been classified, in analogy with silicate (Wang et al., 2001) counterparts, in different ranges: - R1 (880-640 cm-1): strong T-O stretching modes of Ge and non-bridging O1 and O2 atoms within the GeO4 tetrahedron; - R2 (640-480 cm-1): stretching/bending modes of Ge-Obr-Ge bonds (chain stretching and chain bending); - R4 (480-360 cm-1): O-Ge-O vibrations; - R3 (360-240 cm-1): motions of the cations in M2 and M1 sites correlated with tetrahedral chain motion and tilting tetrahedra; - R5 (below 240 cm-1): lattice modes. The largest shift with respect to CaMgSi2O6 - CaCoSi2O6 is shown by the T-O stretching and chain modes. High-pressure Raman spectroscopy (up to about 8 GPa) on the same samples of Ca-pyroxenes using an ETH-type diamond anvil cell shows no phase transition within the P-ranges investigated, as all the peak positions vary linearly as a function of pressure. Our data confirm previous experimental findings on Si-diopside (Chopelas and Serghiou, 2000). In the investigated samples, all the Raman peaks shift upon compression, but the major changes in wavenumber with pressure are attributed to the chain bending (Ge-Obr-Ge bonds) and tetrahedra stretching modes (Ge-Onbr). Upon compression, the kinking angle, the bond lengths and T-T distances between tetrahedra decrease and consequently the wavenumber of the bending chain mode and tetrahedra stretching mode increases. Ge-pyroxenes show the higher P-induced peak-position shifts, being more compressible than corresponding silicates. The vibrational properties of CaM2+Ge2O6 (M2+ =Mg, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn) are reported for the first time. The wavenumber of Ge-Obr-Ge bending modes decreases linearly with increasing ionic radius of the M1 cation. No simple correlation has been found with M1 atomic mass or size or crystallographic parameters for the peak at ~850 cm-1 and in the low wavenumber regions. The magnetic properties of the system CaCoSi2O6 - CoCoSi2O6 have been investigated by magnetometry. The join is always characterized by 1 a.p.f.u. of cobalt in M1 site and this causes a pure collinear antiferromagnetic behaviour of the intra-chain superexchange interaction involving Co ions detected in all the measurements, while the magnetic order developed by the cobalt ions in M2 site (intra-chain) is affected by weak ferromagnetism, due to the non-collinearity of their antiferromagnetic interaction. In magnetically ordered systems, this non-collinearity effect promotes a spin canting of anti-parallel aligned magnetic moments and thus is a source of weak ferromagnetic behaviour in an antiferromagnetic. The weak ferromagnetism can be observed only for the samples with Co content higher than 0.5 a.p.f.u. in M2, when the concentration is sufficiently high to create a long range order along the M2 chain which is magnetically independent of M1 chain. The ferromagnetism was detected both in the M(T) at 10 Oe and M(H).

Passive mode-locked lasing by injecting a carbon nanotube-solution in the core of an optical fiber

In this paper, we propose a saturable absorber (SA) device consisting on an in-fiber micro-slot inscribed by femtosecond laser micro fabrication, filled by a dispersion of Carbon Nanotubes (CNT). Due to the flexibility of the fabrication method, efficient and simple integration of the mode-locking device directly into the optical fiber is achieved. Furthermore, the fabrication process offers a high level of control over the dimensions and location of the micro-slots. We apply this fabrication flexibility to extend the interaction length between the CNT and the propagating optical field along the optical fiber, hence enhancing the nonlinearity of the device. Furthermore, the method allows the fabrication of devices that operate by either a direct field interaction (when the central peak of the propagating optical mode passes through the nonlinear media) or an evanescent field interaction (only a fraction of the optical mode interacts with the CNT). In this paper, several devices with different interaction lengths and interaction regimes are investigated. Self-starting passively modelocked laser operation with an enhanced nonlinear interaction is observed using CNT-based SAs in both interaction regimes. This method constitutes a simple and suitable approach to integrate the CNT into the optical system as well as enhancing the optical nonlinearity of CNT-based photonic devices.

Power tapping function in near infra-red region based on 45° tilted fiber gratings

We report an efficient power tapping device working in near infra-red (800 nm) wavelength region based on UV-in- scribed 45° tilted fiber grating (45°-TFG) structure. Five 45°-TFGs were UV-inscribed in hydrogenated PS750 fiber using a custom-designed phase mask with different grating lengths of 3 mm, 5 mm, 9 mm, 12 mm and 15 mm, showing polarization dependent losses (PDLs) of 1 dB, 3 dB, 7 dB, 10 dB and 13 dB, respectively. The power side-tapping efficiency is clearly depending on the grating strength. It has been identified that the power tapping efficiency increases with the grating strength and deceases along the grating length. The side-tapped power profile has also been examined in azimuthal direction, showing a near-Gaussian distribution. These experimental results clearly demonstrated that 45°- TFGs may be used as in-fiber power tapping devices for applications requiring in-line signal monitoring.

Highly sensitive temperature and strain sensors based on all-fiber 45°-TFG Lyot filter

We demonstrate highly sensitive temperature and strain sensors based on an all-fiber Lyot filter structure, which is formed by concatenating two 45°-TFGs (tilted fiber gratings) with a PM fiber cavity. The experiment results show the all-fiber 45°-TFG Lyot filter has very high sensitivity to strain and temperature. The 45°-TFG Lyot filters of two different cavity lengths (18cm and 40 cm) have been evaluated for temperature sensing by heating a section of the cavity from 10°C to 50°C. The experiment results have shown remarkably high temperature sensitivities of 0.616nm/°C for 18cm and 0.31nm/°C for 40cm long cavity filter, respectively. The 18cm long cavity filter has been subjected to strain variations up to around 550μ ε and the filter has exhibited strain sensitivities of 0.02499nm/μ ε and 0.012nm/μ ε for two straining situations, where its cavity middle section of 18cm and 9cm were stretched, respectively. © 2012 SPIE.

Polymer-lipid interactions:biomimetic self-assembly behaviour and surface properties of poly(styrene-alt-maleic acid) with diacylphosphatidylcholines

Abstract Various lubricating body fluids at tissue interfaces are composed mainly of combinations of phospholipids and amphipathic apoproteins. The challenge in producing synthetic replacements for them is not replacing the phospholipid, which is readily available in synthetic form, but replacing the apoprotein component, more specifically, its unique biophysical properties rather than its chemistry. The potential of amphiphilic reactive hypercoiling behaviour of poly(styrene-alt-maleic acid) (PSMA) was studied in combination with two diacylphosphatidylcholines (PC) of different chain lengths in aqueous solution. The surface properties of the mixtures were characterized by conventional Langmuir-Wilhelmy balance (surface pressure under compression) and the du Noüy tensiometer (surface tension of the non-compressed mixtures). Surface tension values and 31P NMR demonstrated that self-assembly of polymer-phospholipid mixtures were pH and concentration-dependent. Finally, the particle size and zeta potential measurements of this self-assembly showed that it can form negatively charged nanosized structures that might find use as drug or lipids release systems on interfaces such as the tear film or lung interfacial layers. The structural reorganization was sensitive to the alkyl chain length of the PC.

Optical loading sensor based on ring-cavity fiber laser incorporating a 45°-tilted fiber polarizing grating

We have experimentally demonstrated an active loading sensor system based on a fiber ring laser with singlepolarization output using an intra-cavity 45°-tilted fiber grating. When the laser cavity fiber is subjected to loading, the laser output is encoded with the loading information that can be measured and monitored by a standard power meter. The achieved loading sensitivity is 0.033/kg • m-1 and 0.042/kg • m-1 for two different interaction lengths. The experimental results clearly show that such a single-polarization fiber laser may be commercially developed into a low-cost, high-sensitivity loading sensor system.

Amplification schemes and multi-channel DBP for unrepeatered transmission

The performance of unrepeatered transmission of a seven Nyquist-spaced 10 GBd PDM-16QAM superchannel using full signal band coherent detection and multi-channel digital back propagation (MC-DBP) to mitigate nonlinear effects is analysed. For the first time in unrepeatered transmission, the performance of two amplification systems is investigated and directly compared in terms of achievable information rates (AIRs): 1) erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) and 2) second-order bidirectional Raman pumped amplification. The experiment is performed over different span lengths, demonstrating that, for an AIR of 6.8 bit/s/Hz, the Raman system enables an increase of 93 km (36 %) in span length. Further, at these distances, MC-DBP gives an improvement in AIR of 1 bit/s/Hz (to 7.8 bit/s/Hz) for both amplification schemes. The theoretical AIR gains for Raman and MC-DBP are shown to be preserved when considering low-density parity-check codes. Additionally, MC-DBP algorithms for both amplification schemes are compared in terms of performance and computational complexity. It is shown that to achieve the maximum MC-DBP gain, the Raman system requires approximately four times the computational complexity due to the distributed impact of fibre nonlinearity.

Seleção de características para identificação de diferentes proporções de tipos de fibras musculares por meio da eletromiografia de superfície

Skeletal muscle consists of muscle fiber types that have different physiological and biochemical characteristics. Basically, the muscle fiber can be classified into type I and type II, presenting, among other features, contraction speed and sensitivity to fatigue different for each type of muscle fiber. These fibers coexist in the skeletal muscles and their relative proportions are modulated according to the muscle functionality and the stimulus that is submitted. To identify the different proportions of fiber types in the muscle composition, many studies use biopsy as standard procedure. As the surface electromyography (EMGs) allows to extract information about the recruitment of different motor units, this study is based on the assumption that it is possible to use the EMG to identify different proportions of fiber types in a muscle. The goal of this study was to identify the characteristics of the EMG signals which are able to distinguish, more precisely, different proportions of fiber types. Also was investigated the combination of characteristics using appropriate mathematical models. To achieve the proposed objective, simulated signals were developed with different proportions of motor units recruited and with different signal-to-noise ratios. Thirteen characteristics in function of time and the frequency were extracted from emulated signals. The results for each extracted feature of the signals were submitted to the clustering algorithm k-means to separate the different proportions of motor units recruited on the emulated signals. Mathematical techniques (confusion matrix and analysis of capability) were implemented to select the characteristics able to identify different proportions of muscle fiber types. As a result, the average frequency and median frequency were selected as able to distinguish, with more precision, the proportions of different muscle fiber types. Posteriorly, the features considered most able were analyzed in an associated way through principal component analysis. Were found two principal components of the signals emulated without noise (CP1 and CP2) and two principal components of the noisy signals (CP1 and CP2 ). The first principal components (CP1 and CP1 ) were identified as being able to distinguish different proportions of muscle fiber types. The selected characteristics (median frequency, mean frequency, CP1 and CP1 ) were used to analyze real EMGs signals, comparing sedentary people with physically active people who practice strength training (weight training). The results obtained with the different groups of volunteers show that the physically active people obtained higher values of mean frequency, median frequency and principal components compared with the sedentary people. Moreover, these values decreased with increasing power level for both groups, however, the decline was more accented for the group of physically active people. Based on these results, it is assumed that the volunteers of the physically active group have higher proportions of type II fibers than sedentary people. Finally, based on these results, we can conclude that the selected characteristics were able to distinguish different proportions of muscle fiber types, both for the emulated signals as to the real signals. These characteristics can be used in several studies, for example, to evaluate the progress of people with myopathy and neuromyopathy due to the physiotherapy, and also to analyze the development of athletes to improve their muscle capacity according to their sport. In both cases, the extraction of these characteristics from the surface electromyography signals provides a feedback to the physiotherapist and the coach physical, who can analyze the increase in the proportion of a given type of fiber, as desired in each case.

Structural Basis of RNA Recognition by Mycobacterium tuberculosis MazF Homologues

The MazEF toxin-antitoxin (TA) system consists of the antitoxin MazE and the toxin MazF. MazF is a sequence-specific endoribonuclease that upon activation causes cellular growth arrest and increass the level of persisters. Moreover, MazF-induced cells are in a quasi-dormant state that cells remain metabolically active while stop dividing. The quasi-dormancy is similar to the nonreplicating state of M. tuberculosis during latent tuberculosis, thus suggesting the role of mazEF in M. tuberculosis dormancy and persistence. M. tuberculosis has nine mazEF TA modules, each with different RNA cleavage specificities and implicated in selective gene expression during stress conditions. To date only the Bacillus subtilis MazF-RNA complex structure has been determined. As M. tuberculosis MazF homologues recognize distinct RNA sequences, their molecular mechanisms of substrate specificity remain unclear. By taking advantage of X-ray crystallography, we have determined structures of two M. tuberculosis MazF-RNA complexes, MazF-mt1 (Rv2801c) and MazF-mt3 (Rv1991c) in complex with an uncleavable RNA substrate. These structures have provided the molecular basis of sequence-specific RNA recognition and cleavage by MazF toxins.

Both MazF-mt1-RNA and MazF-mt3-RNA complexes showed similar structural organization with one molecule of RNA bound to a MazF-mt1 or MazF-mt3 dimer and occupying the same pocket within the MazF dimer interface. Similar to B. subtilis MazF-RNA complex, MazF-mt1 and MazF-mt3 displayed a conserved active site architecture, where two highly conserved residues, Arg and Thr, form hydrogen bonds with the scissile phosphate group in the cleavage site of the bound RNA. The MazF-mt1-RNA complex also showed specific interactions with its three-base RNA recognition element. Compared with the B. subtilis MazF-RNA complex, our structures showed that residues involved in sequence-specific recognition of target RNA vary between the MazF homologues, therefore explaining the molecular basis for their different RNA recognition sequences. In addition, local conformational changes of the loops in the RNA binding site of MazF-mt1 appear to play a role in MazF targeting different RNA lengths and sequences. In contrast, the MazF-mt3-RNA complex is in a non-optimal RNA binding state with a symmetry-related MazF-mt3 molecule found to make interactions with the bound RNA in the crystal. The crystal-packing interactions were further examined by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) studies on selected MazF-mt3 mutants. Our attempts to utilize a MazF-mt3 mutant bearing mutations involved in crystal contacts all crystallized with few nucleotides, which are still found to interact with a symmetry mate. However, these different crystal forms revealed the conformational flexibility of loops in the RNA binding interface of MazF-mt3, suggesting their role in RNA binding and recognition, which will require further studies on additional MazF-mt3-RNA complex interactions.

In conclusion, the structures of the MazF-mt1-RNA and MazF-mt3-RNA complexes provide the first structural information on any M. tuberculosis MazF homologues. Supplemented with structure-guided mutational studies on MazF toxicity in vivo, this study has addressed the structural basis of different RNA cleavage specificities among MazF homologues. Our work will guide future studies on the function of other M. tuberculosis MazF and MazE-MazF homologues, and will help delineate their physiological roles in M. tuberculosis stress responses and pathogenesis.

Modelação de juntas adesivas por modelos de dano coesivo utilizando o método direto

A utilização de adesivos hoje em dia encontra-se de tal forma disseminada que é transversal a diversos setores do mercado, como a indústria aeroespacial, aeronáutica, automóvel e do desporto. De facto, o uso de ligações adesivas em estruturas mecânicas tem vindo a crescer, na medida em que estes têm substituído os métodos de ligação convencionais, tais como brasagem, rebitagem, ligações aparafusadas e soldadura. No geral, as ligações adesivas apresentam diversas vantagens, desde a diminuição do peso, redução da concentração de tensões, facilidade de fabrico, bom comportamento a solicitações cíclicas e capacidade de unir materiais dissimilares. O crescente interesse da indústria nas ligações adesivas tem por base o aumento da confiabilidade nos métodos de previsão de resistência de estruturas adesivas. Neste contexto surgem os Modelos de Dano Coesivo, que permitem simular o crescimento do dano em estruturas, após introdução das leis coesivas previamente estimadas nos modelos numéricos. Uma das fases mais importantes neste método de previsão é a estimativa das leis coesivas em tração e corte, pelo que se torna de grande relevância a existência e validação de métodos precisos para a obtenção destas leis. Este trabalho visa a validação de leis coesivas em tração e corte, estimadas pela aplicação do método direto, na previsão da resistência de juntas com geometria de solicitação mista. Neste âmbito, ensaiaram-se JSS e JSD com diferentes comprimentos de sobreposição e com adesivos de diferente ductilidade. Foram considerados os adesivos Araldite® AV138, de elevada resistência e baixa ductilidade, o Araldite® 2015, de moderada ductilidade e resistência intermédia, e o SikaForce® 7752, de baixa resistência e elevada ductilidade. As leis coesivas em modo puro serviram de base para a criação de leis simplificadas triangulares, trapezoidais e linearesexponenciais, que foram testadas para cada um dos adesivos. A validação das mesmas consumou-se por comparação das previsões numéricas com os resultados experimentais. Procedeu-se também a uma análise de tensões de arrancamento e de corte no adesivo, de modo a compreender a influência das tensões na resistência das juntas. A utilização do método direto permitiu obter previsões de resistência bastante precisas, indicando as formas de leis coesivas mais adequadas para cada conjunto adesivo/geometria de junta. Para além disso, para as condições geométricas e materiais consideradas, este estudo permitiu concluir que não se cometem erros significativos na escolha de uma lei menos adequada.

Aplicação do método de Elementos Finitos eXtendido (MEFX) para a previsão da resistência de juntas adesivas de sobreposição dupla

As ligações adesivas têm sido utilizadas em diversas áreas de aplicação. A utilização das juntas adesivas em aplicações industriais tem vindo a aumentar nos últimos anos, por causa das vantagens significativas que apresentam comparativamente com os métodos tradicionais de ligação tais como soldadura, ligações aparafusadas e rebitadas. A redução de peso, redução de concentrações de tensões e facilidade de fabrico são algumas das principais vantagens das ligações adesivas. Devido à crescente utilização das ligações adesivas, torna-se necessário a existência de ferramentas que permitam prever a resistência das juntas com elevada precisão. Assim, para a análise de juntas adesivas, está a ser cada vez mais utilizado o método de Elementos Finitos. Neste âmbito o Método de Elementos Finitos eXtendido (MEFX) perfila-se como um método capaz de prever o comportamento da junta, embora este ainda não esteja convenientemente estudado no que diz respeito à aplicação a juntas adesivas. Neste trabalho é apresentado um estudo experimental e numérico pelo MEFX de juntas de sobreposição dupla, nas quais são aplicados adesivos que variam desde frágeis e rígidos, como o caso do Araldite® AV138, até adesivos mais dúcteis, como o Araldite® 2015 e o Sikaforce® 7888. Foram considerados substratos de alumínio (AW6082-T651) em juntas com diferentes comprimentos de sobreposição, sendo sujeitos a esforços de tração de forma a avaliar o seu desempenho. Na análise numérica foi realizada uma análise da distribuição de tensões na camada adesiva, a previsão da resistência das juntas pelo MEFX segundo critérios de iniciação de dano baseados em tensões e deformações, e ainda um estudo sobre o critério energético de propagação de dano. A análise por MEFX revelou que este método é bastante preciso quando usados os critérios de iniciação de dano MAXS e QUADS, e parâmetro com valor de 1 no critério energético de propagação de dano. Apesar de ser um método pouco estudado na literatura comparativamente com outros, o MEFX apresentou resultados muito satisfatórios.