Policeman watching bus that was set on fire over the Eusébio Matoso bridge on the Marginal Pinheiros highway, in São Paulo's south zone, during a wave of violent attacks authorities attributed to the PCC.

Helical gears from an automotive gearbox, previously subjected to the surface treatments of carbo‐nitriding and shot‐peening, were submitted to contact fatigue tests. The X‐ray diffraction technique was used to characterize the evolution of different mechanical and metallurgical parameters as a function of gear damage. Particular attention was paid to residual stress relief. A numerical model was developed to predict residual stress relaxation and estimate the most likely localization of contact fatigue crack initiation. The stress–strain laws of the surface‐treated layers were determined by means of two separate experimental methods, based on locally measured parameters. The Dang Van multiaxial fatigue criterion was used to analyse the failure of the gears, taking into account the effects of friction and roughness.

An overview of the X‐ray fractography technique, as performed on fatigue crack surfaces of several steels and Al‐alloys under different loading conditions, is presented. The plastic zone sizes of fatigue cracks, for plane strain conditions, are measured from the in‐depth distribution of residual stresses and X‐ray diffraction peak broadening. In addition to the usual monotonic plastic zone size determination methodology, a model for the estimation of the reverse plastic zone size was established in the case of fatigue softening materials. Monotonic and cyclic plastic zone sizes are related to the stress intensity by, respectively, rpm = α  (Kmax /σys )2 and rpc = α  (ΔK/2σ′ys )2. The α‐value, in the monotonic plastic zone size equation, increases as the yield strength of the material increases, following the relationship α = 0.196  [σys /(129 + 0.928σys )]2. The α‐value versus σys evolution has been understood through the influence of the hardening rate of materials on the plastic zone size. X‐ray fractography has been applied to actual failure analyses to predict some aspects of the actual loadings.

In this work, continuous health monitoring for disabled or elderly people is proposed using textile integrated electrodes for ECG measurement. Other applications, such as EMG or skin impedance measurement are also envisaged. The paper specifically describes a shirt integrating electrodes for ECG measurement that has been tested in several conditions. The techniques for integration of ECG electrodes can be directly applied for production of EMG or skin-impedance electrodes. Signal processing techniques for heart rate value extraction and to deal with low-quality signal or motion artefacts are being tested and will also be described. Results show that signals acquired with the shirt are comparable to signals acquired with conventional gel electrodes. The complete integration of the electrodes into clothing may have a very interesting psychological benefit, but some issues related to comfort and daily use have to be further investigated.

Self-monitoring procedures are adopted by food industries to ensure the quality and safety of final products, considering hygiene and processing criteria. This study aimed to evaluate contamination in chicken processing, considering the microbiological criteria proposed by self-monitoring systems. Environmental samples from reception, slaughtering and processing were collected from three chicken slaughterhouses (Sl1, Sl2, Sl3), and subjected to microbiological analysis to enumerate hygiene indicators microorganisms: mesophilic aerobes, enterobacteriaceae, coliforms and Escherichia coli. The obtained counts were converted to log 10 , compared by ANOVA (p<0.05) and self-monitoring microbiological criteria for each slaughterhouse were considered. In reception, the mean counts of hygiene indicator microorganisms in Sl3 were significantly higher than mean counts observed in Sl1 and Sl2 (p<0.05). During slaughtering, the chilling was enough to decrease the mean counts of all hygiene indicator microorganisms in Sl1, Sl2 and Sl3 (p<0.05). Based on self-monitoring criteria, in the first stages of slaughtering the facilities presented higher frequencies of chicken carcasses with counts above their respective reference values. Sl02 presented carcasses with higher counts after final washing, resulting in environmental samples with higher counts when compared to Sl1 and Sl3 (p<0.05). Even considering the high counts observed in the initial steps of chicken processing and slaughtering, the results indicated the efficacy of hygienic procedures in providing chicken carcasses and cuts with low microbiological contamination. Self-monitoring criteria supported these results, and the high levels of microbial contamination during the initial steps of slaughtering require subsequent antimicrobial hygienic procedures.

BackgroundThe acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has a high morbi-mortality rate, including physical deficiencies and functional limitations with impact on quality of life. Cardiovascular rehabilitation 1 (CVR1) should begin as early as possible, to enable improvement in functional capacity and quality of life. Previous studies have shown association of cardiovascular diseases with quality of life, in which depression and anxiety are the domains most altered. The aim of the study is to verify the impact of an acute coronary event on quality of life at the moment of hospital discharge.MethodologyThis was a cross-sectional study, with ACS patients hospitalized in ICU of a private hospital in the city of Salvador, Brazil, submitted to CVR1. The quality of life questionnaire Euroqol-5D was applied on discharge from hospital. Patients included in the study were those with ACV, who had medical permission to walk, had not been submitted to acute surgical treatment, were time and space oriented, and over the age of 18 years. Patients excluded from the study were those with cognitive, orthopedic and neurological problems, who used orthesis on a lower limb, and were in any condition of risk at the time of beginning with CVR1. Data were collected by a previously trained ICU team.ResultsData were collected of 63 patients who revealed compromise in the domains of pain/feeling ill (20.63%) and anxiety/depression (38.09%). Statistical significance was observed in the association between sex and pain/feeling ill (P < 0.01), sex and anxiety/depression (P < 0.01), diabetes and mobility (P < 0.01), hereditary factors and anxiety/depression (p < 0.01), BMI and pain/feeling ill (P < 0.01).ConclusionIn this sample of patients, on discharge from hospital after ACS, the pain/feeling ill and anxiety/depression domains were shown to be compromised.

Retrotransposons are dynamic forces in evolutionary genomics and have been implicated as causes of Mendelian disease and hereditary cancer, but their role in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has never been systematically defined. Here, we report 86,154 polymorphic retrotransposon insertions including >60% not previously reported and 158 de novo retrotransposition events identified in whole genome sequencing (WGS) data of 2,288 families with ASD from the Simons Simplex Collection (SSC). As expected, the overall burden of de novo events was similar between ASD individuals and unaffected siblings, with 1 de novo insertion per 29, 104, and 192 births for Alu, L1, and SVA respectively, and 1 de novo insertion per 20 births total, while the location of transposon insertions differed between ASD and unaffected individuals. ASD cases showed more de novo L1 insertions than expected in ASD genes, and we also found de novo intronic retrotransposition events in known syndromic ASD genes in affected individuals but not in controls. Additionally, we observed exonic insertions in genes with a high probability of being loss-of-function intolerant, including a likely causative exonic insertion in CSDE1, only in ASD individuals. Although de novo retrotransposition occurs less frequently than single nucleotide and copy number variants, these findings suggest a modest, but important, impact of intronic and exonic retrotransposition mutations in ASD and highlight the utility of developing specific bioinformatic tools for high-throughput detection of transposable element insertions.

No abstract