A survey on the use of medical plants was carried out in the rural communities of the Rio Negro sub-region of the Pantanal and the raizeiros from Aquidauana and Miranda municipalities, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, in order to recover the ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological knowledge of these communities. Structured questionnaires were run with the residents of eight farms and 12 raizeiros. The results reveal 25 botanical families, 45 genera and 48 species of medicinal plants used, six of which are indicated for kidney disturbances, six for urinary disturbances, five for inflammation treatment, 13 for stomach aches, 10 for respiratory disturbances, four for treating sprains, four for healing wounds, four as anti-diarrheaic and one as antipyretic, among other illnesses. The main family was Asteraceae, with 12 species used. The principal preparation methods of the medicinal herbs in the Rio Negro sub-region and surrounding areas were infusion (35) and, mostly, mixed with "chimarrão" or "mate quente", traditional beverage. Nineteen exotic species are used by the raizeiros, (39.58%), which indicates a strong influence of the urban environment. The traditional pantaneiros have greater knowledge of medicinal plants than the raizeiros, and they cited only five exotic species (16.1%). Thus, this biome is an important vegetation complex for the study of medicinal herbs, covering a diversity of species with great potential for ethnobotanical studies (e.g. Conceição and Paula, 1986;Pott and Pott, 1994;Bortolotto, 1999;Souza and Guarim-Neto, 1999;Pott and Pott, 2000;Schwenk and Silva, 2000;Campos Filho, 2002). It is also occupied by a native population with great cultural importance, adapted to the intermittent cycles of flood and drought of the region, the pantaneiros or marsh-dwellers (Nogueira, 2002). KeywordsThe use of plants for therapeutic purposes in the Pantanal region has long been reported in various Indian tribes. Since the first colonisation of the region, especially during the Paraguay War (1864-1870), extractivist activities have been intensified in other communities and are now part of the 'pantaneiros' lives, either for medicinal ends or just to bring comfort in the face of their daily adversities (WHO, 2002).The knowledge of the correct use of plant species normally belongs to restricted groups of the population, known as raizeiros (generally people with little formal education, who through the knowledge transmitted by their parents or other people with empirical knowledge, use plants for disease treatment), benzedeiras (usually women, who treat distinct diseases through prayer and herbs) and other, usually elderly, people, who received medicinal information from their ancestors (Guarim-Neto, 2006). As these groups are restricted and often threatened by environmental changes, which alter their lifestyle and culture, the recovery of this ethnobotanical knowledge is fundamental in rescuing traditions that may soon be lost.Considering the information gaps in the ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacologica...

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In this article, the electromagnetic scattering from dielectric and composite bodies of revolution are analyzed by the electric‐magnetic field integral equation (EMFIE) and the magnetic‐electric field integral equation (MEFIE), which are customarily overlooked in the literature. A standard method‐of‐moments (MoM) technique is applied for the numerical solution of the surface integral equations. Several dielectric and composite geometries are analyzed through the bandwidth and results are compared with those of well‐established Müller and PMCHWT (a solution proposed by Poggio, Miller, Chang, Harrington, Wu, and Tsai) integral equation formulations. Investigated case studies indicate that the MoM Z‐matrices yielded by the EMFIE and MEFIE are as well‐conditioned as those provided by the Müller and PMCWHT formulations. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:398–402, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25720

A F-shapedprinted dipole antenna, designed to operate simultaneously at 1.8 GHz, 2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz is proposed in this work. The main challenge of the project is to find the antenna optimal geometry so that its gain has a higher value in the three operating frequencies in order to be efficiently applied it in the energy harvesting and wireless communication systems.To achieve the proposed operating condition, reduce the antenna return loss and enhance its bandwidth and gain a metamaterial surface was incorporated into its structure.All simulations and optimizations were performed using the Computer Simulation Technology software by employing the Finite Difference Time Domain technique for the electromagnetic equations evaluation. The antenna and metamaterial geometrical dimensions were optimized by using the Genetic Algorithm technique. Numerical and experimental evaluations were performed for the antenna with and without the metamaterial structure incorporated. The results obtained demonstrate the appropriately designed metamaterial ability to improve the antennas performance, increasing their bandwidth and gain and decreasing the return loss value.

Estimating the gain of an antenna prototype is an important step during both design and validation phases. Nevertheless, many small technology companies and universities are not provided with adequate infrastructure to run this type of test. In this paper, we propose a computational tool to deal with undesirable contributions coming from non-ideal test conditions over electromagnetic measurements. It is based on auto-tunable filters and therefore it allows a lab technician to run the test without a major knowledge on signal processing. After a series of evaluations based on lab measurements, the proposed tool gives results as good as those provided by two other approaches but with a reduction of the total number of experimental runs. Furthermore, it is more efficient than the traditional time gating approach for low signal-to-noise ratio environments. Finally, a validation with different antennas and test sites confirmes its robustness.

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