Discarding Like Pieces

The guideline of ‘discarding like men’ to estimate the merit of a chess position is well known. This note compares it with some statistics.

By-catch and discarding practices in five Algarve (southern Portugal) metiers

The catches and discards of trawlers, seiners and trammel netters were studied in the Algarve (southern Portugal) using observers onboard commercial fishing vessels. Species diversity was high, with 236 species recorded as occasionally, frequently or regularly discarded. Mean discard rates per trip were 0.13, 0.20, 0.27, 0.62 and 0.70, respectively, for trammel nets, demersal purse seines, pelagic purse seines, fish trawls and crustacean trawls, with high variability in terms of discard volume and discard rate, This was especially so for se ncrs where from 0 to 100% of the total catch might be discarded. No significant relationships were found between discard quantity or discard rate and characteristics of the fishing vessels sampled within each metier (total length, TAB, hp, kW). Based on the above discard rates and the official landings, it was estimated that in 1996, Algarve trawlers discarded 9000-13000 tonnes (t) while seiners discarded 5500-8200 t. Discarding practices in these fisheries are reviewed and the reasons for discarding are presented by species and metier basis. The results support the need for more studies on the factors contributing to discarding, variability in discard quantities and rates, the fate of discards and their importance to the marine ecosystem, and on ways of reducing by-catch and discarding in these fisheries.

The Effects of Commercially Available Preservative-Free FDA-Approved Triamcinolone (Triesence (R)) on Retinal Cells in Culture

Purpose: To evaluate the effects of Triesence (R) (TRI), a new preservative-free triamcinolone approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for intraocular use, on human retina pigment epithelial (ARPE-19) and rat neurosensory (R28) cells in culture. Methods: ARPE-19 and R28 cell cultures were treated 24 h with 1,000, 500, 200, or 100 mu g/mL of crystalline (cTRI) or 1,000, 500, or 200 mu g/mL of solubilized (sTRI). TRI was solubilized by centrifuging the drug, discarding the supernatant containing the vehicle and then resuspending the drug pellet in an equivalent amount of Dimethyl sulfoxide to achieve the same concentration as the commercial preparation. Percentage of cell viability (CV) was evaluated by a trypan blue dye-exclusion assay. The mitochondrial membrane potential (Delta Psi m) was analyzed with the JC-1 assay. The caspase-3/7 activity was measured by a fluorochrome assay. Results: In the ARPE-19 cultures, the cTRI caused a decrease in CV at 1,000 mg/mL (13.03 +/- 6.51; P < 0.001), 500 mu g/mL (28.87 +/- 9.3; P < 0.001), 200 mu g/mL (54.93 +/- 5.61; P < 0.001), and 100 mu g/mL (82.53 +/- 0.65; P < 0.005) compared with the untreated controls (96.98 +/- 0.16). In R28 cultures, the cTRI treatment also reduced CV values significantly (P < 0.001) for the 1,000 mu g/mL (22.73 +/- 2.44), 500 mu g/mL (34.63 +/- 1.91), 200 mu g/mL (58.70 +/- 1.39), and 100 mu g/m (75.33 +/- 2.47) compared with the untreated controls (86.08 +/- 3.54). Once the TRI was solubilized (sTRI), the CV and Delta Psi m remained similar to the untreated controls for both ARPE-19 and R28 cells. The sTRI treatment with 1,000, 500, and 200 mu g/mL increased in caspase-3/7 activity in ARPE-19 cells (P < 0.01) and in R28 cells (P < 0.05) compared with dimethyl sulfoxide equivalent controls. Conclusion: The crystalline form of TRI (cTRI) can cause a significant decrease in CV to cultured retinal cells. Once the TRI is solubilized (sTRI), at the same concentrations, the cells remain viable with no decrease in CV or Delta Psi m. The sTRI can, however, increase caspase-3/7 activity, thus suggesting some degree of apoptosis.

Influence of the slice position on chloride migration tests for concrete in marine conditions

Chloride migration tests are used to measure the concrete capacity to inhibit chloride attack. Many researchers carry out this test in a slice of concrete extracted from the central part of cylindrical specimens, discarding about 75% of the concrete used to mold the specimens. This fact generated the question: would it be possible to extract more slices from a same specimen without losing the confidence in the results? The main purpose of this work is to answer this question. Moreover, another aim of this study was to show the difference of chloride penetration between finished faces and the formwork surfaces of concrete beams and slabs. The results indicated that it is possible to use more slices of a single specimen for a chloride migration test. Moreover, it was demonstrated that there is a significant difference of chloride penetration between the finished surface and the formwork surface of the specimens. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Do simple prudent health behaviours protect men from myocardial infarction?

Background We tested whether behaviours such as discarding obvious fat on meat, cessation of smoking, avoidance of passive smoking, habitual use of reduced fat milk, prudent consumption of alcohol and regular but moderate physical exercise are associated with a reduction of cardiovascular risk. Methods This was a population-based case-control study done in Perth, Western Australia. The cases (n = 336) were men aged 27-64 years with a first-ever acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during the period 1992-1993, and who survived at least 28 days. The controls (n = 735) were participants in a population-based survey of cardiovascular risk factors conducted during May-November 1994. Both groups completed the same questionnaire and the data were analysed with multiple logistic regression using backward elimination technique. Results Among men aged 27-64 years simple measures such as participation in non-vigorous exercise (odds ratio [OR] = 0.5, 95% CI : 0.4-0.7), and avoidance of added salt (OR = 0.6, 95% CI : 0.4-0.9) are associated with significant and Important protection from AMI. Conclusion After 25 years of falling mortality in Australia, lifestyles can still be significantly improved to reduce heart disease even further.

Reprocessing and reuse of single-use medical devices used during hemodynamic procedures in Brazil: A widespread and largely overlooked problem

Background. Several medical devices used during hemodynamic procedures, particularly angiographic diagnostic and therapeutic cardiac catheters, are manufactured for single use only. However, reprocessing and reuse of these devices has been reported, to determine the frequency of reuse and reprocessing of single-use medical devices used during hemodynamic procedures in Brazil and to evaluate how reprocessing is performed. Design. National survey, conducted from December 1999 to July 2001. Methods. Most of the institutions affiliated with the Brazilian Society of Hemodynamic and Interventional Cardiology were surveyed by use of a questionnaire sent in the mail. Results. The questionnaire response rate was 50% (119 of 240 institutions). Of the 119 institutions that responded, 116 (97%) reported reuse of single-use devices used during hemodynamic procedures, and only 26 (22%) reported use of a standardized reprocessing protocol. Cleaning, flushing, rinsing, drying, sterilizing and packaging methods varied greatly and were mostly inadequate. Criteria for discarding reused devices varied widely. Of the 119 institutions that responded, 80 (67%) reported having a surveillance system for adverse events associated with the reuse of medical devices, although most of these institutions did not routinely review the data, and only 38 (32%) described a training program for the personnel who reprocessed single-use devices. Conclusions. The reuse of single-use devices used during hemodynamic procedures was very frequent in hospitals in Brazil. Basic guidance on how to reuse and reprocess single-use medical devices is urgently needed, because, despite the lack of studies to support reusing and reprocessing single-use medical devices, such devices are necessary in limited-resource areas in which these practices are current.

The anxiolytic-like effects of cannabidiol injected into the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis are mediated by 5-HT1A receptors

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychotomimetic compound from Cannabis sativa that induces anxiolytic-like effects in rodents and humans after systemic administration. Previous results from our group showed that CBD injection into the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) attenuates conditioned aversive responses. The aim of this study was to further investigate the role of this region on the anxiolytic effects of the CBD. Moreover, considering that CBD can activate 5-HT1A receptors, we also verified a possible involvement of these receptors in those effects. Male Wistar rats received injections of CBD (15, 30, or 60 nmol) into the BNST and were exposed to the elevated plus-maze (EPM) or to the Vogel conflict test (VCT), two widely used animal models of anxiety. CBD increased open arms exploration in the EPM as well as the number of punished licks in the VCT, suggesting an anxiolytic-like effect. The drug did not change the number of entries into the enclosed arms of the EPM nor interfered with water consumption or nociceptive threshold, discarding potential confounding factors in the two tests. Moreover, pretreatment with the 5-HT1A receptor antagonist WAY100635 (0.37 nmol) blocked the effects of CBD in both models. These results give further support to the proposal that BNST is involved in the anxiolytic-like effects of CBD observed after systemic administration, probably by facilitating local 5-HT1A receptor-mediated neurotransmission.

Anxiolytic-like effects induced by blockade of transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) channels in the medial prefrontal cortex of rats

The endocannabinoid anandamide, in addition to activating cannabinoid type 1 receptors (CB1), may act as an agonist at transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) channels. In the periaqueductal gray, CB1 activation inhibits, whereas TRPV1 increases, anxiety-like behavior. In the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), another brain region related to defensive responses, CB1 activation induces anxiolytic-like effects. However, a possible involvement of TRPV1 is still unclear. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that TRPV1 channel contributes to the modulation of anxiety-like behavior in the mPFC. Male Wistar rats (n = 5-7 per group) received microinjections of the TRPV1 antagonist capsazepine (1-60 nmol) in the ventral portion of the mPFC and were exposed to the elevated plus maze (EPM) or to the Vogel conflict test. Capsazepine increased exploration of open arms in the EPM as well as the number of punished licks in the Vogel conflict test, suggesting anxiolytic-like effects. No changes in the number of entries into the enclosed arms were observed in the EPM, indicating that there were no changes in motor activity. Moreover, capsazepine did not interfere with water consumption or nociceptive threshold, discarding potential confounding factors for the Vogel conflict test. These data suggest that TRPV1 in the ventral mPFC tonically inhibits anxiety-like behavior. TRPV1 could facilitate defensive responses opposing, therefore, the anxiolytic-like effects reported after local activation of CB1 receptors.

Biodiesel production from waste frying oils over lime catalysts

Biodiesel production from semi-refined oils (SRO) and waste frying oils (WFO) was studied using commercial CaO as heterogeneous catalyst. The methanolysis tests were carried out in mild reaction conditions (62 A degrees C, atmospheric pressure). With such conditions, SRO (soybean and rapeseed) allowed to produce a biodiesel containing 97-98 % of methyl esters (FAME), whereas WFO only provided 86-87 % of FAME. The lower FAME yield for WFO oil is ascribable to the partial neutralization of the catalyst by free fatty acids. Also, soaps formation from the WFO oil reduced the weight yield of the oil phase (containing FAME) obtained and increased the MONG content of the glycerin phase. The catalysts stability tests showed high stability even when WFO oil was processed. Catalytic tests performed with blends of WFO/semi-refined oils showed blending as a good strategy to process low value raw oils with minor decay of the catalyst performance. Both WFO and semi-refined oils showed S-shape kinetics curves thus discarding significant differences of the reaction mechanisms.

Exploiting the bin-class histograms for feature selection on discrete data

In machine learning and pattern recognition tasks, the use of feature discretization techniques may have several advantages. The discretized features may hold enough information for the learning task at hand, while ignoring minor fluctuations that are irrelevant or harmful for that task. The discretized features have more compact representations that may yield both better accuracy and lower training time, as compared to the use of the original features. However, in many cases, mainly with medium and high-dimensional data, the large number of features usually implies that there is some redundancy among them. Thus, we may further apply feature selection (FS) techniques on the discrete data, keeping the most relevant features, while discarding the irrelevant and redundant ones. In this paper, we propose relevance and redundancy criteria for supervised feature selection techniques on discrete data. These criteria are applied to the bin-class histograms of the discrete features. The experimental results, on public benchmark data, show that the proposed criteria can achieve better accuracy than widely used relevance and redundancy criteria, such as mutual information and the Fisher ratio.

HEART ANEURYSM IN CHAGAS' DISEASE

This prospective study on 41 autopsy collected human hearts concerns the "apical" lesion in Chagas' disease. Previous report did not show a correlation between lesion frequency and heart weight then discarding a vascular factor in its pathogenesis. The present paper involves other variables besides the heart weight to evaluate the relative coronary insufficiency. Distinct colored gel (green and red) injected through the capillary beds of both coronary arteries defined the extent of both vessels before separating the atria and removing the sub-epicardium fat. The Right Ventricle (RV) and Left Ventricle (LV) free walls furnished the RV/LV mass ratio. The myocardium mass colored green (right coronary artery - RC) and the whole Ventricular Weight (VW) determined the RC/VW mass ratio. The heart weight plus these mass ratios, graded and added, composed a score inversely proportional to the myocardium irrigation condition. It intended to be a more sensitive morphologic evaluation of the relative ischaemia to correlate to the apical lesion. This study showed a right deviation for the relative accumulated frequency of lesions plotted as a score function and a significant difference for higher scores in hearts with aneurysm. It suggests a ischaemic factor intervening in the apical lesion pathogenesis in Chagas' cardiopathy.

A domain specific language for domotic systems

To cope with modernity, the interesting of having a fully automated house has been increasing over the years, as technology evolves and as our lives become more stressful and overloaded. An automation system provides a way to simplify some daily tasks, allowing us to have more spare time to perform activities where we are really needed. There are some systems in this domain that try to implement these characteristics, but this kind of technology is at its early stages of evolution being that it is still far away of empowering the user with the desired control over a habitation. The reason is that the mentioned systems miss some important features such as adaptability, extension and evolution. These systems, developed from a bottom-up approach, are often tailored for programmers and domain experts, discarding most of the times the end users that remain with unfinished interfaces or products that they have difficulty to control. Moreover, complex behaviors are avoided, since they are extremely difficult to implement mostly due to the necessity of handling priorities, conflicts and device calibration. Besides, these solutions are only reachable at very high costs, yet they still have the limitation of being difficult to configure by non-technical people once in runtime operation. As a result, it is necessary to create a tool that allows the execution of several automated actions, with an interface that is easy to use but at the same time supports all the main features of this domain. It is also desirable that this tool is independent of the hardware so it can be reused, thus a Model Driven Development approach (MDD) is the ideal option, as it is a method that follows those principles. Since the automation domain has some very specific concepts, the use of models should be combined with a Domain Specific Language (DSL). With these two methods, it is possible to create a solution that is adapted to the end users, but also to domain experts and programmers due to the several levels of abstraction that can be added to diminish the complexity of use. The aim of this thesis is to design a Domain Specific Language (DSL) that uses the Model Driven Development approach (MDD), with the purpose of supporting Home Automation (HA) concepts. In this implementation, the development of simple and complex scenarios should be supported and will be one of the most important concerns. This DSL should also support other significant features in this domain, such as the ability to schedule tasks, which is something that is limited in the current existing solutions.

Breeding sites of Aedes aegypti in metropolitan vacant lots in Greater Vitória, State of Espírito Santo, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to evaluate the presence of Aedes aegypti in breeding sites located in vacant lots (VLs) and determine the effectiveness of VL cleaning to reduce insect foci. METHODS: Two types of VLs were sampled, the experimental VL, which was cleaned monthly, and the control VL, which was not cleaned. RESULTS: Monthly cleaning of VLs reduced the abundance of immature forms of A. aegypti. CONCLUSIONS: Strategies for combating this vector should include regular cleaning of VLs and educating the public regarding the risks of discarding waste in inappropriate areas.

Age, growth and population dynamics of lemon sole Microstomus kitt (Walbaum 1792) sampled off the West Coast of Ireland

The age, growth, maturity and population dynamics of lemon sole (Microstomus kitt), captured off the west coast of Ireland (ICES division Vllb), were determined for the period November 2000 to February 2002. The maximum age recorded was 14 years. Males of the population were dominated by 4 year olds, while females were dominated by 5 year olds. Females dominated the sex ratio in the overall sample, each month sampled, at each age and from 22cm in total length onwards (when N > 20). Possible reasons for the dominance of females in the sex ratio are discussed. Three models were used to obtain the parameters of the von Bertalanfly growth equation. These were the Ford-Walford plot (Beverton and Holt 1957), the Gulland and Holt plot (1959) and the Rafail (1973) method. Results of the fitted von Bertalanffy growth curves showed that female lemon sole o f f the west coast of Ireland grew faster than males and attained a greater size. Male and female lemon sole mature from 2 years of age onwards. There is evidence in the population o f a smaller asymptotic length (L«, = 34.47cm), faster growth rate (K = 0.1955) and younger age at first maturity, all of which are indicative o f a decrease in population size, when present results are compared to data collected in the same area 22 years earlier. Results of the yield per recruit curve indicate that lemon sole are currently being over-fished o f f the west coast of Ireland. Problems of selectivity within the sampling method, particularly at the discarding stage, may have influenced the outcome of results of the models used in the assessment of this stock. Therefore, additional/future work on this species should include catch data which incorporates discards and not landings data alone.

A influência da alimentação verde na postura

A test was conducted at Poultry Department of "Luiz de Queiroz" School of Agriculture to prove the effect of green feed on egg production. One hundred Rhode Island Red hens at plain laying period were divided in ten pens. The lot A was constituted of pens 1 to 5 and the lot B of pens 6 to 10. During 16 days the pens 1 to 5 did not receive green feed and the pens 6 to 10 received it with abundance. After and for a period of 30 days the situation was inverted. The analysis were made considering, a) the production of all chickens and b) discarding the chickens with irregular laying. In both cases the results were statistically insignificant, proving that green feed did not improve egg production.