Unplanned pregnancy in Portugal

Cyclo 3 Fort is used in the treatment of chronic venous insufficiency. In this study, the effects of Cyclo 3 Fort, 2, 10 and 50 mg/kg, were studied in cheek pouch preparations from diabetic hamsters. The mean arteriolar diameter in animals receiving Cyclo 3 Fort, 10 and 50 mg/kg, was significantly greater than in control animals (p < 0.05), and the mean venule diameter was significantly lower in animals receiving the 50 mg/kg dose than in the control group. This suggests that Cyclo 3 Fort, 50 mg/kg/day, has a venotonic effect in diabetic animals. The venoarteriolar reflex was studied by measuring the internal diameter of arterioles during venular occlusion. The reflex was impaired in animals treated with either placebo or 2 mg/kg, but this was reversed by treatment with Cyclo 3 Fort, 10 and 50 mg/kg.     

The impacts of a GTL plant on Brazil's oil products supply and refinery expansion

This paper assesses the impacts of a GTL plant on the expansion of Brazil's oil refining segment. The GTL plant (50,000 bpd) was sized to start up operations in 2015, producing diesel and naphtha through the indirect route (FT-synthesis). This plant will consume the non-associated natural gas production from the recent discoveries at the Santos Basin (around 419 Bm³), and the associated gas production from the Campos Basin. Both basins are located in the Southeast of Brazil, the most populated, rich and industrialized region of the country. Two different criteria for refinery expansion were simulated in order to meet oil product demand scenarios. Findings show that depending on the refinery expansion criteria considered GTL will play a fundamental hole to meet the oil product demand forecast to Brazil in the next 10 years.     

Programmable analogue VLSI implementation for asymmetric sigmoid neural activation function and its derivative

A new CMOS VLSI implementation of an asymmetric programmable sigmoid neural activation function, as well as of its derivative, is presented. It consists of two coupled PMOS and NMOS differential pairs with different programmable bias currents that set the upper and lower limits of the sigmoid. The circuit works in the weak inversion region, for low power consumption and exponential envelope, or in strong inversion to achieve higher speeds. The results obtained from the theoretical transfer function, and from the simulations of the circuit implemented in AMI's 0.35 /spl mu/m technology, show a very good match.     

Sequential batch reactor for eucalypt kraft pulp effluent treatment with Trametes versicolor

BACKGROUND: A sequential batch reactor (SBR) was used for eucalypt kraft pulp effluent treatment with Trametes versicolor. A 2³ full factorial design and response surface methodology were applied to optimise the batch fermentation conditions. Effluent concentration, culture medium and inoculum age were the factors selected for this study in order to optimise the reduction of chemical oxygen demand (COD). RESULTS: The presence of Trametes Defined Medium (TDM) in the fermentation was required to obtain a significant COD reduction. Experiments in the batch reactor confirmed, in general, the predicted results of optimisation developed from Erlenmeyer batch assays. The T. versicolor culture remained active during 42 days of study in the SBR, providing approximately 80% of COD reduction. CONCLUSION: Trametes versicolor may be considered as very promising for the biological treatment of effluents from kraft pulp mills in an SBR system instead of the activated sludge mixed cultures traditionally used. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Thermal/structural dynamic analysis via approximate analytical approach

The present paper uses a classical Galerkin weighted residual formulation to obtain the approximate analytical solution of a thermally loaded beam executing free flexural vibrations. The approach used is one where the time variable is considered in the same manner as the spatial variable, and is included in the basis functions. The basis functions used in the approach are polynomials obtained from the terms of a power series, with the condition of nullity on the boundary. This choice simplifies the algebraic manipulations considerably and yields close form expressions for components of the system matrix. The latter also simplifies the numerical computation of coefficients of the approximating polynomial. The approach provides benefits in terms of increased accuracy and lower computational costs.     

Influence of pencil lead hardness on voltammetric response of graphite reinforcement carbon electrodes

This work studied the voltammetric response of graphite reinforcement electrodes made of different pencil lead hardness. The studies showed that harder graphite leads, regardless of their manufacturer, are more appropriate as electrode material for voltammetric purposes due to their higher peak currents, increasing sensitivity and reproducibility, with ΔEp closer to the theoretical value for a reversible system.     

Functional properties of collagenous material from chicken feet

Collagenous material was obtained from chicken feet skins and tendons, defatted with ethylic ether and treated with 0.05 M and 0.6 M NaCl solutions. Part of the material was dried at 35 degrees C in a forced air convection oven and another was freeze-dried. The air dried material had 77.2 g/100 g of collagen and the freeze-dried material 76.7 g/100 g. Both dehydrated materials showed the same behaviour for gel formation and cold water holding capacity. The material air dried had higher emulsifying capacity than the freeze-dried one. The collagen of freeze-dried material had higher solubility in 0.5 M acetic acid and water at 70 degrees C than air dried material. Gel strength, emulsion stability and water holding capacity at 60 degrees C were higher for freeze-dried material. The results indicate the potential use of these materials as functional ingredients in meat products.     

A formal representation for context-aware business processes

A business process is a set of activities performed in a coordinated manner within an organizational and technical environment that is aimed toward a business goal. The flexibility of a process is related to an understanding of the unexpected events that occur when people, systems and resources interact and require adjustments. Thus, business processes must be designed to respond to information about different events and their specificity. This information defines what the literature calls “context”. To broaden the perception of context in the case of a business process, this work proposes an approach to characterize the context of a business process activity in a given domain through conceptual models structured in layers. A case study was conducted to evaluate the proposal, which provided evidence of the applicability of the model.     

Nickel Activation for Hydrogenolysis Reaction on USY Zeolite

The effects of the SAR (14 and 38) and of the methodology of introduction of nickel (wetness impregnation and ion exchange) on catalyst activation were investigated in Ni/USY model catalysts submitted to two activation treatments: reduction (A) and reduction/calcination/reduction, successively (B). the catalysts prepared by wetness impregnation, a marked increase in the catalytic activity after treatment B was observed. On the basis of the catalyst efficiency toward ethane hydrogenolysis, the lower SAR catalyst presents a threefold higher activity. On the contrary, the catalysts prepared by ion exchange, as well as a model catalyst prepared by wetness impregnation over a USY exhaustively exchanged with nickel ions, do not present measurable increasing of the catalytic activity under the same activation conditions. Monitoring the catalyst activation by EXAFS indicates the formation of nickel clusters in the impregnated catalysts after activation treatment B, which should be responsible for the high catalytic activity. However, TEM images reveal a bimodal particle size distribution, with large (ca. 20 nm) and small nickel particles. Temperature-programmed reduction performed under the same conditions of catalyst activation suggests that only the small nickel particles are activated under the experimental conditions adopted in this work.     

Hefestos: an intelligent system applied to ubiquitous accessibility

This article proposes Hefestos, an intelligent system applied to ubiquitous accessibility. This model uses ubiquitous computing concepts to manage accessibility resources for people with disabilities. Among the concepts employed, context awareness, user profiles and trails management can be highlighted. The paper proposes an ontology for accessibility and delineates scenarios of its application in everyday life of people with disabilities. Moreover, the implementation of a smart wheelchair prototype and its application in a practical experiment is described. Ten users with a range of disability degrees tried the system and filled out a survey based on the technology acceptance model. This experiment demonstrated the main functionalities and the acceptance of the system. The results showed 96 % of acceptance regarding perceived easy of use and 98 % in perceived usefulness. These results were encouraging and show the potential for implementing Hefestos in real life situations.