This paper focuses on partnerships across the state-society divide in the management of bulk water in the state of Ceará, in Northeast Brazil. It examines the creation of Users' Commissions in two of ...Ceará's river basins-the Lower Jaguaribe/Banabuiú and the Curú. It is argued that the presence of synergy across the state-society divide is critical to guarantee meaningful public participation. In turn, meaningful participation improves decision making at the river basin level and supports positive values in policy making such as decentralization, equity, accountability and transparency.
There is an urgent need in industrialized societies to develop novel products that can lower human dietary cholesterol intake. Dehydrated alfalfa is a good source of hypocholesterolemic compounds ...such as saponins. Whether consumption of alfalfa by chickens would decrease the cholesterol content of broiler meat remains, however, to be established. We determined meat quality characteristics, lipid and cholesterol contents, and consumer preference of broiler meat derived from production systems based on restricted feeding of a commercial diet combined with provision of free-choice dehydrated alfalfa. Results demonstrated that it was possible to produce chicken breast meat with reduced cholesterol content. In addition, total lipids in chicken meat were significantly decreased when a higher level of restriction was applied. Members of a 50-person consumer panel preferred meat from animals not consuming or consuming moderate levels of alfalfa. Those members that preferred meat from animals consuming the higher percentage of alfalfa identified taste as the primary attribute influencing that decision. Together the results suggest that it is possible to develop novel broiler production systems that will produce leaner meat that is acceptable to consumers and has a reduced cholesterol content.
Initial experience of extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy (ESWL) using the Lithostar lithotriptor is reported; 193 patients underwent 248 treatments for 210 stones. A total of 139 renal calculi ...(126 patients) and 71 ureteral stones (67 patients) were analyzed. Treatments were performed without anesthesia in 65 calculi (27.6%), with intravenous sedation in 91 (42.5%), and under epidural anesthesia in 34 calculi (29.9%). A three-month follow-up showed a success rate of 88.0 percent for renal calculi and 95.5 percent for ureteral calculi treated in situ. Renal stone fragmentation was achieved with a mean of 4,890 shocks at 17.4 kV and ureteral calculi were fragmented with a mean number of 4,798 shocks at a mean of 18.3 kV. Auxiliary procedures after ESWL were required in 2 patients with renal stones and in 1 with ureteral calculi. A comparison between stone size and number of shock waves required to achieve stone fragmentation revealed a linear relationship. Hospitalization was not necessary in 84.4 percent of renal calculi and 89.6 percent of ureteral calculi. Retreatments were necessary in 22 (15.8%) of the renal calculi (18 had 2 sessions, 3 had 3 sessions, and 1 had 4 sessions). Of the ureteral calculi, 8 (11.3%) underwent retreatment (6 had 2 sessions, 1 had 3 sessions, and 1 had 4 sessions). The low morbidity with a large number of patients treated on an outpatient basis, minimizing the need for anesthesia, demonstrated a favorable initial successful experience with the Lithostar.
This paper addresses the identification of the optimal set of heat exchangers to be cleaned during a plant maintenance shutdown. The proposed methodology is based on the resolution of a mixed-integer ...linear programming problem which allows the identification of the cleaning requirements aiming to reduce costs during the interval between scheduled plant shutdowns. The linear structure of the proposed formulation avoids problems associated to multiple local optima, and the resultant problem dimension allows the analysis of large heat exchanger networks without excessive computational efforts. The application of the proposed approach is illustrated through the investigation of two heat exchanger networks. The first example explores some typical cleaning patterns and the other example demonstrates the utilization of the proposed approach applied to a real network.
Abstract
To better understand the roles of heat shock proteins in streptococcal diseases, the groEL and dnaK genes from Streptococcus pyogenes were cloned and their products (GroEL and DnaK) and ...derivatives (F2GroEL, F3GroEL and C1DnaK) purified as His-tagged fusion proteins. Western blot analysis of the purified proteins with sera from individuals with streptococcal diseases demonstrated that 29 out of 36 sera tested were reactive with GroEL and eight recognized DnaK. Rabbit antiserum against myosin recognized both GroEL and DnaK. Antibodies raised against purified F2GroEL and DnaK reacted with myosin in the ELISA but not in a Western immunoblot. These data indicate that the S. pyogenes GroEL and DnaK may be important immunogens during streptococcal infections. Furthermore, we provide evidence of an immunogenic relatedness of the GroEL and DnaK proteins with myosin that could play a role in the pathogenesis of streptococcal non-suppurative sequelae.
Failure of the treatment of posterior urethral stenosis ranges from 10 to 30 per cent. Strictures secondary to pull-through or transpubic urethroplasty are difficult to manage. The management of ...these strictures is reviewed in 21 children and 84 adults. Of the 105 patients 69 had been treated previously by a perineal pull-through technique and 36 by transpubic urethroplasty. A total of 18 patients (10 in the transpubic and 8 in the pull-through groups) whose results were fair or poor underwent internal urethrotomy with the Sachse knife as a complementary treatment after posterior urethroplasty. Internal urethrotomy provided good results in 8 patients (80 per cent) in the transpubic group and 5 (62.5 per cent) in the pull-through group. None of the patients was incontinent and there was no symptomatic urinary infection postoperatively.
In adsorption−desorption phenomena, interaction among adatoms can cause multiple steady states and, consequently, hysteresis loops. Starting from a master equation and applying a mean field ...approximation to obtain the kinetic equations, adsorption on a heterogeneous surface with two types of randomly distributed adsorbent sites is characterized by different activation energies. Moreover, interaction among adsorbates contributes to the total activation energy. In general, depending on the values of the kinetic parameters and the heterogeneity degree, up to three stable steady states can exist for values of the parameter J, which measures the interaction energy, greater than the critical one, J c. Once the other parameters have been fixed and considering different heterogeneity degrees, the highest J c is obtained for the case of a 50−50% site distribution. Mobility of adatoms on the surface disfavors multistability, and interactions stronger than those corresponding to a case without mobility are required to cause multiplicity of stable steady states. On the other hand, a dimerization reaction catalyzed by a surface like the one above described does not change essentially the number of stable steady states. Thus, for the case considered, multiplicity is a result due to the adsorption process and does not depend on the reaction one. Multistability causes different reaction rates for given conditions, depending on the initital states. When three or four types of adsorbent sites are considered, multistability does not appear. Also, when different continuous distributions of types of adsorbent sites are considered, multistability is also destroyed. Therefore, it can be concluded that an “excess” of surface heterogeneity prevents the occurrence of multistability in adsorption with interacting adsorbates.
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