Custos e benefícios de um programa de exercício aeróbios na doença pulmonar obstrutica crônica: ensaio cliníco aleatório controlado

Pulmonary Rehabilitation, especially due to aerobic exercise, positive impact in reducing morbidity/mortality of patients with COPD, however the economic impact with costs of implementing simple programs of aerobic exercise are scarce. This is a blind randomized clinical trials, which aimed to evaluate the costs and benefits of a simple program of aerobic exercise in individuals with COPD, considering the financial costs of the Public Health System and its secondary endpoints. We evaluated lung function, the distance walked during six minutes of walking, the respiratory and peripheral muscle strength, quality of life related to health (QLRH), body composition and level of activity of daily living (ADL) before and after eight weeks of an aerobic exercise program consisting of educational guidance for both groups, control and intervention and supervised walks to the intervention group. The health costs generated in both groups were calculated following table Brazilian Public Health System. The sample consisted of forty patients, two being excluded in the initial phase of desaturation during the walk test six minutes. Were randomized into control and intervention group thirty-eight patients, three were excluded from the control group and one was excluded from the intervention group. At the end, thirty-four COPD comprised the sample, 16 in the control group and 18 in the intervention group (FEV1: 50.9 ± 14% pred and FEV1: 56 ± 0.5% pred, respectively). After for intervention, the intervention group showed improvement in meters walked, the sensation of dyspnea and fatigue at work, BODE index (p <0.01) in QLRH, ADL level (p <0.001) as well as increased strength lower limbs (p <0.05). The final cost of the program for the intervention group was R $ 148.75, including: assessments, hiking supervised by a physiotherapist and reassessments. No patient had exacerbation of IG, while 2 patients in the CG exacerbated, generating an average individual cost of R $ 689.15. The aerobic exercises in the form of walking showed significant clinical benefits and economic feasibility of its implementation, due to low cost and easy accessibility for patients, allowing them to add their daily practice of aerobic exercises

Paralelização em GPU da segmentação vascular com extração de Centerlines por Height Ridges

The vascular segmentation is important in diagnosing vascular diseases like stroke and is hampered by noise in the image and very thin vessels that can pass unnoticed. One way to accomplish the segmentation is extracting the centerline of the vessel with height ridges, which uses the intensity as features for segmentation. This process can take from seconds to minutes, depending on the current technology employed. In order to accelerate the segmentation method proposed by Aylward [Aylward & Bullitt 2002] we have adapted it to run in parallel using CUDA architecture. The performance of the segmentation method running on GPU is compared to both the same method running on CPU and the original Aylward s method running also in CPU. The improvemente of the new method over the original one is twofold: the starting point for the segmentation process is not a single point in the blood vessel but a volume, thereby making it easier for the user to segment a region of interest, and; the overall gain method was 873 times faster running on GPU and 150 times more fast running on the CPU than the original CPU in Aylward

Segmentação Fuzzy de Texturas e Vídeos

The segmentation of an image aims to subdivide it into constituent regions or objects that have some relevant semantic content. This subdivision can also be applied to videos. However, in these cases, the objects appear in various frames that compose the videos. The task of segmenting an image becomes more complex when they are composed of objects that are defined by textural features, where the color information alone is not a good descriptor of the image. Fuzzy Segmentation is a region-growing segmentation algorithm that uses affinity functions in order to assign to each element in an image a grade of membership for each object (between 0 and 1). This work presents a modification of the Fuzzy Segmentation algorithm, for the purpose of improving the temporal and spatial complexity. The algorithm was adapted to segmenting color videos, treating them as 3D volume. In order to perform segmentation in videos, conventional color model or a hybrid model obtained by a method for choosing the best channels were used. The Fuzzy Segmentation algorithm was also applied to texture segmentation by using adaptive affinity functions defined for each object texture. Two types of affinity functions were used, one defined using the normal (or Gaussian) probability distribution and the other using the Skew Divergence. This latter, a Kullback-Leibler Divergence variation, is a measure of the difference between two probability distributions. Finally, the algorithm was tested in somes videos and also in texture mosaic images composed by images of the Brodatz album

Segmentação fuzzy de imagens e vídeos

Image segmentation is the process of subdiving an image into constituent regions or objects that have similar features. In video segmentation, more than subdividing the frames in object that have similar features, there is a consistency requirement among segmentations of successive frames of the video. Fuzzy segmentation is a region growing technique that assigns to each element in an image (which may have been corrupted by noise and/or shading) a grade of membership between 0 and 1 to an object. In this work we present an application that uses a fuzzy segmentation algorithm to identify and select particles in micrographs and an extension of the algorithm to perform video segmentation. Here, we treat a video shot is treated as a three-dimensional volume with different z slices being occupied by different frames of the video shot. The volume is interactively segmented based on selected seed elements, that will determine the affinity functions based on their motion and color properties. The color information can be extracted from a specific color space or from three channels of a set of color models that are selected based on the correlation of the information from all channels. The motion information is provided into the form of dense optical flows maps. Finally, segmentation of real and synthetic videos and their application in a non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) toll are presented

Benefícios econômicos agregados às propriedades urbanas pelas paisagens naturais

Amenities value provided by green areas, sea, river and natural landscapes are hardly perceived and incorporated on urban planning and development. In this work, distance and view to protected and non-protected green areas, sea and river were evaluated as to how they increase the housing prices in Natal. Hedonic pricing methods were used with linear models to estimate the marginal implicit value of environmental, residential and neighborhood features. Results on Chapter 1 demonstrate the view to the sea and protected natural areas were largely capitalized on housing prices, while non-protected natural areas didn t display such effect. Housing prices also increase when close to the sea or to parks entrance. However, housing prices fall when houses are near non-protected natural areas. When estates with sea view were excluded, the protected natural areas view and a longer distance to non-protected natural areas increased dwelling prices. Results on Chapter 2 point the sea view as an hedonic variable the contributes strongly to the property selling prices, even though not always as the greatest contributor; furthermore, the property proximity to Dunas Park or City of the Park entrance increases its price, as does closeness to Dunas Park, view to City of the Park or Dunas Park. On the other hand, selling prices diminish if properties are close to City of the Park or Morro do Careca. Results on this study confirm the hedonic pricing methods is an important intrument, capable of revealing to popullation the importance of enviromental amenities and can be used by public managers for creating public policies for conservation and restoration projects

Análise morfométrica do colágeno dérmico a partir da segmentação por conglomerados (clusters) de cor

Análise morfométrica do colágeno dérmico pode fornecer subsídio quantitativo para a pesquisa em dermatologia. Os autores demonstram uma técnica de análise de imagem digital que permite a identificação de estruturas microscópicas, a partir da segmentação por conglomerados (clusters), de cor aplicada à estimativa da intensidade e densidade das fibras colágenas da derme.

Segmentação fuzzy de imagens coloridas com características texturais: uma aplicação a rochas sedimentares

Image segmentation is the process of labeling pixels on di erent objects, an important step in many image processing systems. This work proposes a clustering method for the segmentation of color digital images with textural features. This is done by reducing the dimensionality of histograms of color images and using the Skew Divergence to calculate the fuzzy a nity functions. This approach is appropriate for segmenting images that have colorful textural features such as geological, dermoscopic and other natural images, as images containing mountains, grass or forests. Furthermore, experimental results of colored texture clustering using images of aquifers' sedimentary porous rocks are presented and analyzed in terms of precision to verify its e ectiveness.

Benefícios e dificuldades da gestão ambiental com base na ISO 14001 em empresas industriais de São Paulo

O principal objetivo deste trabalho é verificar, por meio de uma pesquisa tipo survey, os benefícios e as dificuldades da adoção de Sistemas de Gestão Ambiental ISO 14001 em empresas industriais do Estado de São Paulo. Para tal, um questionário foi enviado para 194 empresas constantes da base de dados do INMETRO (Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial) e respondido por 69 delas, representando uma taxa de retorno de 35,36%. Duas hipóteses foram estabelecidas para realização do estudo: uma enunciando os potenciais benefícios e outra as dificuldades da gestão ambiental com base na norma NBR ISO 14001. Estas hipóteses foram parcialmente comprovadas. O artigo está estruturado da seguinte forma: introdução, sistema de gestão ambiental, norma NBR ISO 14001, método de pesquisa, apresentação e análise dos resultados, conclusão e referências bibliográficas.

Segmentação anatomocirúrgica arterial dos pulmões de ovinos da raça ideal (Ovis aires - L.1758)

Foram estabelecidos segmentos anatomocirúrgicos em pulmões de ovinos da raça Ideal (dezessete segmentos no pulmão direito e doze no esquerdo), mediante dissecação de peças coradas com látex colorido e fixadas em formol. Na maioria dos casos, a artéria pulmonar direita emite, a partir de um tronco, o ramo ascendente e descendente para as partes cranial e caudal do lobo cranial respectivamente; o ramo do lobo médio; o ramo do lobo caudal e o ramo do lobo acessório. Invariavelmente, a artéria pulmonar esquerda emite o ramo do lobo cranial e o ramo do lobo caudal.

Segmentação de dados de perfilamento a laser em áreas urbanas utilizando uma abordagem Bayesiana

In this paper is presented a region-based methodology for Digital Elevation Model segmentation obtained from laser scanning data. The methodology is based on two sequential techniques, i.e., a recursive splitting technique using the quad tree structure followed by a region merging technique using the Markov Random Field model. The recursive splitting technique starts splitting the Digital Elevation Model into homogeneous regions. However, due to slight height differences in the Digital Elevation Model, region fragmentation can be relatively high. In order to minimize the fragmentation, a region merging technique based on the Markov Random Field model is applied to the previously segmented data. The resulting regions are firstly structured by using the so-called Region Adjacency Graph. Each node of the Region Adjacency Graph represents a region of the Digital Elevation Model segmented and two nodes have connectivity between them if corresponding regions share a common boundary. Next it is assumed that the random variable related to each node, follows the Markov Random Field model. This hypothesis allows the derivation of the posteriori probability distribution function whose solution is obtained by the Maximum a Posteriori estimation. Regions presenting high probability of similarity are merged. Experiments carried out with laser scanning data showed that the methodology allows to separate the objects in the Digital Elevation Model with a low amount of fragmentation.

Ampolas de Vidro: Riscos e Benefícios

Background and objectives: Glass ampoules have been widely used in packaging injection drugs. Glass has important characteristics that allow it to be widely used in fabrication of recipients for drugs and other sterile substances. However, contamination of solutions with glass microparticles on breaking open glass ampoules, the presence of metals, percutaneous injury, and biological contamination justify the need of educational materials to orient the manipulation of ampoules. Contents: Glass microparticles generated in the snap-opening of ampoules, as well as metals that contaminate their contents can be aspirated and injected through several routes. Exogenous contaminations by glass and metals can reach several sites in the organism. They trigger organic reactions that may give rise to injuries. Opening ampoules can expose professionals to the risk of percutaneous injuries. These lesions increase the biological risk as they are the gateway for viruses and bacteria. Ampoules opening systems (VIBRAC and OPC) have been developed to reduce the incidence of such accidents. Alternative materials to glass may represent an interesting strategy to increase safety. The use of prefilled syringes may represent an evolution regarding safety. Conclusions: Team training and information provided by the pharmaceutical industry on the use of ampoules are fundamental in the prophylaxis of accidents and contaminations. The search for safer materials to replace glass is also important. © 2011 Elsevier Editora Ltda.

Segmentação de palavras: prosódia e convenções ortográficas na reelaboração da escrita infantil

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Segmentação morfológica aplicada à cartografia

Pós-graduação em Ciências Cartográficas - FCT

A política de redistribuição de renda por meio da transparência de benefícios monetários: uma análise do programa renda cidadã de Ourinhos da ótica dos beneficiários

Pós-graduação em Ciências Sociais - FFC

Um estudo sobre os benefícios e dificuldades da gestão ambiental com base na Norma ISO 14001 em empresas industriais

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)