•Important definitions and aspects of rare earths are revisited.•Recent applications involving RE-CDs hybrids are discussed.•Synthesis methods, advantages and disadvantages of RE-CDs hybrids are ...reviewed.•Main rare earth elements used in doping with CDs is discussed.•Limitations, gaps and suggestions for future research are provided.
Carbon dots (CDs) are nanostructures containing mainly carbon atoms and abundant functional groups. With remarkable and adjustable physicochemical properties, CDs have excellent hydrophilicity, photoluminescence (PL), biocompatibility, and low toxicity. Although the numerous advantages make CDs a research target for synthesizing advanced materials, some limitations are pertinent and must be corrected. Rare earth elements (RE) are excellent candidates for doping CDs, obtaining hybrid materials called RE-CDs to optimize luminescence properties, applicability, and quantum yields. Hybrids allow the combination of the advantageous characteristics of both CDs and RE, drastically improving their luminous and magneto-optical imaging performance and opening the door to numerous practical and technological applications. To date, no studies in the literature have provided in-depth analyses of the methods used to prepare RE-CDs, the characterization techniques used, the challenges, and a critical analysis of what could be improved in the synthesis by proposing practical solutions. To fill this gap, this review initially presents a detailed survey of CDs and RE separately. Subsequently, RE-CDs hybrid materials are addressed, as well as their obtainment, commonly used characterizations, and recent applications, from analyte detection to their functionality in medical nanodevices. Finally, criticisms and suggestions for future work are also discussed to inspire new research and discoveries about the technological potential of hybrid materials derived from the doping of RE-CDs.
Habitat loss and the illegal exploitation of natural resources are among the main drivers of species extinction around the world. These disturbances act at different scales, once changes in the ...landscape composition and configuration operate at large scales and exploitation of natural resources at local scales. Evidence suggests that both scales are capable of triggering genetic erosion in the remaining populations. However, most of the studies so far did not evaluate simultaneously the effects of these disturbances on genetic diversity and structure of plants. In this study, we used a multiple scale approach to empirically evaluate the impacts caused by local and landscape scale disturbances in the genetic diversity and structure of an endangered palm tree,
Euterpe edulis
. We sampled and genotyped with microsatellite markers 544 juveniles of
E. edulis
in 17 fragments of Atlantic Forest in Brazil. In addition, we estimated the local logging rate and the forest cover and isolation at landscape scale. We found that the palm populations have not undergone any recent bottleneck events and that only logging intensification had affected the fixation index and the number of private alleles. Additionally, we did not detect any evidence of spatial genetic structure or genetic divergence associated with environmental disturbance variables at different scales. However, we identified distinct genetic clusters, which may indicate a reduction of gene flow between fragments that were previously a continuous habitat. Our results show that local disturbances, which act directly on population size reduction, such as logging, modified the genetic diversity more rapidly, whereas genetic structure is probably more influenced by large-scale modifications. In this way, to maximize the conservation efforts of economically exploited species, we recommend to increase the inspection to reduce the illegal exploitation, and reforestation of degraded areas, in order to increase the gene flow in Atlantic Forest fragments.
Introdução: Os acidentes de trabalho são um grande problema de saúde pública, especialmente para os profissionais da área da saúde. Diversos patógenos presentes em sangue e fluidos corporais podem ...causar infecções, incluindo HIV, Hepatite B e Hepatite C. No Brasil, esses acidentes são de notificação compulsória e tratados como emergenciais. Diante disso, o aumento desses infortúnios exige uma análise dos fatores envolvidos e a implementação de medidas de prevenção mais eficazes. Objetivo: Realizar uma análise retrospectiva dos casos de exposição acidental a material biológico em serviços de saúde, além de exposição sexual. Ademais, identificar as causas dessas exposições, reconhecer casos graves que exigiram profilaxia e enfatizar o aumento percentual de acidentes por exposição sexual em relação aos anos anteriores. Métodos: Estudo quantitativo, descritivo e retrospectivo, baseado em dados secundários coletados do Sistema de Gerenciamento Logístico dos Medicamentos Antirretrovirais (SICLOM), prontuário eletrônico I-doctor e fichas de dispensação de antirretrovirais. Foram analisadas variáveis relevantes para o objetivo do estudo, com inclusão de casos notificados no SICLOM nos últimos 5 anos. O estudo teve início após a aprovação no Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da instituição, atendendo a Resolução CNS n° 466/2012 e suas complementações. A identidade dos participantes do estudo foi preservada. Resultados: No ano de 2022, o hospital registrou 685 acidentes com exposição a materiais biológicos. A maioria dos casos (61,3%) envolvia indivíduos do gênero feminino. Desses acidentes, 10% foram considerados graves, 22,1% moderados e 67,9% leves. Constatou-se, ainda, que 82,7% das pessoas que procuraram profilaxia tinham entre 21 e 40 anos de idade. Houve também um número significativo de exposições sexuais a materiais biológicos, totalizando 1.394 casos, sendo 1,4% deles relacionados à violência sexual. A rápida busca por profilaxia pode prevenir doenças infectocontagiosas causadas por acidentes com materiais biológicos. Conclusão: Com base na hipótese de que a profilaxia quando feita de maneira rápida, possibilita evitar complicações decorrentes de doenças infectocontagiosas, este estudo reforça a importância de medidas preventivas e de conscientização para garantir a segurança dos profissionais de saúde, além de oferecer subsídios científicos para a implementação de ações que aprimorem as estratégias de educação em saúde e controle de infecções.
Glanders is an infectious and often lethal zoonotic disease of equines caused by the bacterium, Burkholderia mallei. This condition is characterized by respiratory, lymphatic, and cutaneous lesions. ...In this study, we monitored the development of clinical symptoms in animals naturally infected with B. mallei across different equine breeds and also isolated and characterized the disease-causing bacteria. We studied two official glanders outbreaks in the state of Alagoas, Brazil. During the outbreaks, we performed clinical and immunological follow-up of the animals, as well as euthanasia and anatomopathological examination. We also collected diagnostic materials for isolative, phenotypic, molecular, and biological testing. We did not observe any clinical patterns of glanders among animals infected with the same strain of B. mallei. Based on our results, we suggest that early diagnosis of infection should be made through highly sensitive and specific immunoassays. In asymptomatic but positive test cases, we confirmed the importance of conducting pathological, microbiological, and molecular examinations.
RESUMO: O mormo é uma enfermidade infectocontagiosa e frequentemente letal, aguda ou crônica, caracterizada por lesões respiratórias, linfáticas e cutâneas em equídeos, porém de caráter zoonótico. Objetivou-se acompanhar o desenvolvimento dos sinais clínicos e de lesões em animais infectados naturalmente por B. mallei em diferentes propriedades de criação de equídeos, e isolar e caracterizar a bactéria causadora da doença. Foram estudados dois focos oficiais para o mormo no estado de Alagoas. Realizou-se o acompanhamento clinico e imunológico dos animais nos focos, eutanásia e exame anatomopatológico dos animais, além de colheita de material para diagnóstico através de técnicas de isolamento, fenotípicas, moleculares e prova biológica. Neste estudo não se observou um padrão clínico para o diagnóstico do mormo em animais infectados com a mesma cepa de B. mallei. O diagnóstico precoce da infecção deve ser realizado por meio de testes imunológicos de elevada sensibilidade e especificidade. Nos casos assintomáticos e positivos nos testes oficiais é importante a realização do exame anatomopatológico, microbiológico e molecular.
Mg clay minerals are usually associated with carbonates in alkaline-saline environments, precipitated from solution and/or transformation from other minerals. The aim of this research is to identify ...the mineralogy and geochemistry of clay minerals in different alkaline lakes in the Nhecolândia region, the southernmost region of the Pantanal wetland (Brazil). Sediment samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Water samples were analyzed, determining their main cations and anions, in order to understand their relationship with the clays. The analyses allowed classifying the water bodies as saline, oligosaline and freshwater lakes. The sediments are composed mainly of quartz and a fine-clay fraction, dominated by illite, kaolinite and smectite. The XRD results showed illite and smectite mixed-layered in the saline lakes at Barranco Alto farm, whereas at Nhumirim farm, trioctahedral smectite was only observed in one lake. The smectite minerals were normally identified coupled with calcite at the top of the sequences, associated with exopolymeric substances (EPS) in the lakes, suggesting that these minerals are precipitating due to the physical-chemical and biological conditions of the water bodies.
Sustainable computing is a rapidly growing research area spanning several areas of computer science. In the software engineering field, the topic has received increasing attention in recent years, ...with several studies addressing a range of concerns. However, few studies have demonstrated the awareness of software practitioners about the underlying concepts of sustainability in the software development practice. In this effect, this study aims to provide some evidence regarding the practitioners’ perception about the adoption of sustainability in software development, under four main perspectives: economic, social, environmental, and technical. In previous work, we carried out a preliminary survey study with twenty-five software engineers who work in a range of domains. The yielded results indicate an overall lack of knowledge about the topic, in particular, related to concepts about sustainable software. In this study, we extend the survey and reached a number of ninety-seven respondents. The novel results confirmed the evidence raised in the original survey that sustainability in the context of software is a new subject for software practitioners. However, professionals have shown interest in it. There is a general understanding that sustainability should be treated as a quality attribute. Among the observed perspectives, we generated an initial theory, which shows that software practitioners know the subject around ‘Green in Software’, even unconsciously. This study contributes to the green and sustainable software engineering field by bringing evidence on comprehending how the software industry understands the adoption of sustainability in the software development process.
VarXplorer Soares, Larissa Rocha
2018 IEEE/ACM 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion (ICSE-Companion),
05/2018
Conference Proceeding
Feature interactions occur when a feature behavior is influenced by the presence of another feature(s). Typically, interactions may lead to faults that are not easily identified from the analysis of ...each feature separately, especially when feature specifications are missing. In this paper, we propose VarXplorer, an iterative approach that supports developers to detect internal interactions on control and data flow of configurable systems, by means of feature-interaction graphs and an interaction specification language.
Heart rate variability analysis was performed in 2 moments for the 30 cancer volunteers, where the first one started before the first chemotherapy session and the second after the end of the ...chemotherapy cycle, and compared with 30 healthy volunteers. The variables of the Heart Rate Variability presented significant worsening, indicating that chemotherapy results in a worse cardiac autonomic adaptation.
Diversas particularidades integrantes do meio ambiente interferem nas atividades humanas. Os resíduos sólidos são exemplos disso, uma vez que atuam como um dos grandes contribuintes para a degradação ...ambiental. Os municípios de Salvaterra e Soure, localizados na Ilha do Marajó – estado do Pará, dispõem de uma exuberante riqueza natural, em contrapartida, o manejo dos resíduos sólidos é insatisfatório, particularmente na destinação final, em razão de não dispor de qualquer técnica de recuperação/disposição dos resíduos gerados. À vista disso, este estudo teve como objetivo identificar áreas ambientalmente preparadas para recepção dos impactos de um aterro sanitário nos municípios de Salvaterra e Soure, com o auxílio de ferramentas SIG. A metodologia foi desenvolvida estabelecendo critérios a partir de aspectos ambientais (pedologia, vegetação, declividade e outros). Áreas com características ambientais fortemente sensíveis aos impactos que possam ocorrer com a instalação e operação do empreendimento proposto foram excluídas, permitindo aplicar a ponderação por meio de geoprocessamento nas áreas consideradas menos sensíveis. O método de exclusão permitiu reduzir a área de estudo em 99,3%, resultando em 6 poligonais de diferentes extensões, todos localizados em Salvaterra. Consequentemente uma única área foi escolhida como a alternativa locacional mais adequada para a implantação do aterro sanitário.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Aspectos Ambientais; Resíduos Sólidos; SIG.
Context: Software product lines (SPL) engineering defines a set of systems that share common features and artifacts to achieve high productivity, quality, market agility, low time to market, and ...cost. An SPL product is derived from a configuration of features which need to be compounded together without violating their particular specifications. While it is easy to identify the behavior of a feature in isolation, specifying and resolving interactions among features may not be a straightforward task. The feature interaction problem has been a challenging subject for decades.
Objective: This study aims at surveying existing research on feature interaction in SPL engineering in order to identify common practices and research trends.
Method: A systematic mapping study was conducted with a set of seven research questions, in which the 35 studies found are mainly classified regarding the feature interaction solution presented: detection, resolution and general analysis.
Results: 43% of the papers deal with feature interaction at early phases of a software lifecycle. The remaining is shared among the other categories: source code detection, resolution and analysis. For each category, it was also identified the main strategies used to deal with interactions.
Conclusions: The findings can help to understand the needs in feature interaction for SPL engineering, and highlight aspects that still demand an additional investigation. For example, often strategies are partial and only address specific points of a feature interaction investigation.
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