Health and education: alternative courses for the development of nursing personnel

The disposition behavior of trientine, a selective copper-chelating drug for Wilson's disease, and its metabolites in normal patients with Wilson's disease and rats were studied. A high concentration of metabolites appeared in blood samples of patients and rats in the early stage after administration of trientine. Furthermore, large amount of trientine metabolites were excreted into the urine of patients. These results suggest that trientine is remarkably subjected to a first-pass effect. The drug concentration area under the curve (AUC) of the unchanged form and the metabolites of trientine in patients was not dependent on the administered dosage. It seems that the absorption process is an important factor for the disposition behavior of trientine, we have also investigated the uptake characteristics of trientine by rat intestinal brush-border membrane vesicles. The uptake characteristics of trientine were similar to the physiological polyamines, spermine and spermidine. The uptake rate of trientine was dose-dependently inhibited by spermine and spermidine. Moreover, spermine competitively inhibited the uptake of trientine with a Ki value of 18.6 muM. This value is very close to the Km value for spermine (30.4 muM). These data suggested that the uptake mechanism of trientine in rat small intestinal brush-border membrane vesicles was almost identical to that of spermine and spermidine, and that the physiological polyamines seem to have the ability to inhibit the absorption of trientine from the gastrointestinal tract.     

The Green language type system

A programming language that considers basic values and classes as objects brings more opportunities of code reuse and it is easier to use than a language that does not support this feature. However, popular statically typed object-oriented languages do not consider classes as first-class objects because this concept is difficult to integrate with static type checking. They also do not consider basic values as objects for sake of efficiency. This article presents the Green language type system which supports classes as classless objects and offers a mechanism to treat basic values as objects. The result is a reasonably simple type system which is statically typed and easy to implement. It simplifies several other language mechanisms and prevents any infinite regression of metaclasses.     

Project design abacus for wall base ventilation drying systems to control dampness

Dampness is an important degradation issue especially in old buildings and monumental heritage, particularly a rising one as the result of capillary movement of water in the lower sections of walls and other ground-supported structures by capillary action. There are several methods to treat this kind of dampness among which is the wall base hygro-regulated ventilation system an interesting solution for high thick walls with considerable heterogeneity.

A significant number of studies have been undertaken around this method which have been implemented and validated in several heritage buildings. Such achievement has led to the adoption of the HUMIVENT patent system which aims to increase evaporation through peripheral channels on the base of the ventilated walls. A pre-sizing design program was also created and was called HUMIVENT PREDIM.

This study aims to develop a set of auxiliary abacus for pre-sizing wall base ventilation systems. This approach aims to provide fast and expeditious systems sizing in the design and rehabilitation project offices. It allows an easy awareness in the several parameters that influence the wet front and the preliminary ventilation system design. It is a very useful tool for designers allowing them to obtain pre-sizing without extensive knowledge of the program and the associated parameters and with quick understanding of the drying process optimization. For better awareness of the abacus’ potentiality and use, an application example is provided thereof. It is concluded that the abacus can straightforwardly be used for sensitivity studies and for the selection of the best solution in each case.     

Effects of Spray-Drying Conditions on the Physicochemical Properties of Blackberry Powder

The purpose of this work was to study the effects of spray-drying conditions on the physicochemical characteristics of blackberry powder using a central composite rotatable design. Inlet air temperature (140–180°C) and maltodextrin concentration (5–25%) were employed as independent variables. Moisture content, hygroscopicity, anthocyanin retention, color, powder morphology, and particle size were analyzed. A higher inlet air temperature significantly increased the hygroscopicity of the powder, decreased its moisture content, and led to the formation of larger particles with smooth surfaces. Powders produced with higher maltodextrin concentrations were less hygroscopic, slightly lighter and less red, and had a lower moisture content. Anthocyanin retention was mainly affected by drying temperature due to the heat sensitivity of the pigment. The optimal processing conditions were an inlet air temperature of 140–150°C and maltodextrin concentration of 5–7%. Overall, these results indicate that good quality powders can be obtained by spray drying, with potential applications for the food industry.     

An Automated Investing Method for Stock Market Based on Multiobjective Genetic Programming

Stock market automated investing is an area of strong interest for the academia, casual, and professional investors. In addition to conventional market methods, various sophisticated techniques have been employed to deal with such a problem, such as ARCH/GARCH predictors, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, etc. A computational system that combines a conventional market method (technical analysis), genetic programming, and multiobjective optimization is proposed in this work. This system was tested in six historical time series of representative assets from Brazil stock exchange market (BOVESPA). The proposed method led to profits considerably higher than the variation of the assets in the period. The financial return was positive even in situations in which the share lost market value.     

Kinetics of Soybean Oil Hydrolysis on Niobium Catalysts

The catalytic hydrolysis of soybean oil was used as an alternative for the production of monoglycerides (MG) and diglycerides (DG). The reactions were conducted in a stainless-steel tubular reactor in the temperature range of 240–290 °C, on niobium phosphate (NBP) and niobium oxide (NBO) as catalysts. In the hydrolysis reactions at 270 °C, the maximum selectivities of the products of interest were obtained at 22 % MG and 48 % DG for the reaction with NBP, and 7 % MG and 33 % DG with NBO, for 59 % and 36 % of triglyceride conversion in 10 min, respectively. The proposed kinetic model presented a good fit of the theoretical model with the experimental data, showing that the previous hypotheses considered for the mechanism development are suitable for describing the kinetics of soybean oil hydrolysis.     

Evaluation of Transport Phenomena for Removing Vanadium from Petrochemical Industry Solid Waste

Transport phenomena are investigated which are involved in the electrokinetic remediation process used for removing vanadium from deactivated catalysts from oil catalytic cracking that are currently allotted to cement plants and class-I landfills. Variables such as the concentration of electrolyte, electric potential, and applied electric current were evaluated in order to determine the effects produced by electroosmosis, diffusion, hydraulic gradient, and electromigration on the removal of vanadium from the catalyst. It was observed that migration is the most relevant phenomenon in the remediation tests, and for the best remediation condition, the migratory flow accounted for about 87 % of the vanadium removal.