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In this paper, we propose an extragradient algorithm for solving equilibrium problems on Hadamard manifolds to the case where the equilibrium bifunction is not necessarily pseudomonotone. Under mild assumptions, we establish global convergence results. We show that the multiobjective optimization problem satisfies all the hypotheses of our result of convergence, when formulated as an equilibrium problem.

We present a theoretical investigation, based on ab initio calculations and the quasi-harmonic approximation, on the stability properties of magnesium (MgCO3) and calcium (CaCO3) carbonates at high temperatures and pressures. The results indicate that those carbonates should be stable in the Earth's lower mantle, instead of dissociating into other minerals, in chemical environments with excess of SiO2, MgO, or MgSiO3. Therefore, considering the lower mantle chemical composition, consisting mostly of the MgSiO3 and MgO minerals, calcium and magnesium carbonates are the primary candidates as carbon hosts in that region. For the thermodynamic conditions of the mantle, the results also indicate that carbon should be primarily hosted on MgCO3, contrasting with what was found by other theoretical studies, which neglected temperature effects. Finally, the results indicate that carbon, in the form of free CO2, is unlikely in the lower mantle.

We introduce an algorithm for solving non-smooth equilibrium problems in real Hilbert spaces. At each iteration, a regularized proximal-like equilibrium problem on a suitable outer approximation of the original constraint set is considered. We prove, under standard assumptions, that the sequence generated by the algorithm converges weakly to a solution of the problem. Some numerical experience with the algorithm is reported.

We report a theoretical discussion of the impact the composition on the maximum energy product ((BH)max) of core@shell FePt@CoFe2 and FePt@Fe nanocylinders. We have found that the best composition is determined by the competing trends imposed by a strong ferromagnetic core@shell interface exchange energy, and the core@shell dipolar interaction energy. The dipolar interaction has a negative impact on the nanocylinder (BH)max value, for shell thickness above a shell material dependent threshold value. We have also found that Fe is the best shell material owing to its much larger exchange stiffness.We report a theoretical discussion of the impact the composition on the maximum energy product ((BH)max) of core@shell FePt@CoFe2 and FePt@Fe nanocylinders. We have found that the best composition is determined by the competing trends imposed by a strong ferromagnetic core@shell interface exchange energy, and the core@shell dipolar interaction energy. The dipolar interaction has a negative impact on the nanocylinder (BH)max value, for shell thickness above a shell material dependent threshold value. We have also found that Fe is the best shell material owing to its much larger exchange stiffness.

In this paper we consider a general equilibrium problem in a Hilbert space defined on a closed and convex set. We show a Tikhonov-type regularization method that can be extended for the equilibrium problem. Under mild assumptions we establish the equivalence between the existence of solution of the original problem and the boundedness of the sequence generated by regularized problems.

In this paper, we present an inexact version of the steepest descent method with Armijo’s rule for multicriteria optimization in the Riemannian context given in Bento et al. (J. Optim. Theory Appl., 154: 88–107, 2012). Under mild assumptions on the multicriteria function, we prove that each accumulation point (if any) satisfies first-order necessary conditions for Pareto optimality. Moreover, assuming that the multicriteria function is quasi-convex and the Riemannian manifold has nonnegative curvature, we show full convergence of any sequence generated by the method to a Pareto critical point.

The use of insects to answer questions in criminal investigations, as well as a combination of forensic genetic techniques to obtain human DNA from the organisms, especially necrophagous dipterians, have gained ground in recent decades among researchers and professionals in this area. The objective of our study was to evaluate and compare two methods of human DNA extraction, commonly used for forensic samples, to obtain human autosomal DNA and X chromosome short tandem repeat profiles from the digestive tract of Chrysomya albiceps (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae. Immature specimens were collected from corpses at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Pernambuco and raised in bovine ground meat to allow stabilization of the colony. Groups of larvae in the third instar were provided with bovine ground meat plus human blood for 48 h, dissected, and then subjected to DNA extraction. DNA was extracted using two methods: a DNA IQ™ kit and a phenol-chloroform method. Genomic DNA was amplified using AmpFℓSTR(®) Identifiler(®) Plus PCR and Argus-X-12(®) kits, and samples were sequenced to determine if the two extraction techniques generated reliable profiles that were compatible with a reference sample. The existence of comparable profiles from both techniques demonstrates the usefulness of dipteran larvae for obtaining human DNA from corpses, which can be further used to correlate genetic profiles in a crime scene when other traces are not available. However, several variables still require revision; thus, the technique should be further investigated for its validity, security, and, in particular, its reproducibility.

We introduce an explicit algorithm for solving nonsmooth equilibrium problems in finite-dimensional spaces. A particular iteration proceeds in two phases. In the first phase, an orthogonal projection onto the feasible set is replaced by projections onto suitable hyperplanes. In the second phase, a projected subgradient type iteration is replaced by a specific projection onto a halfspace. We prove, under suitable assumptions, convergence of the whole generated sequence to a solution of the problem. The proposed algorithm has a low computational cost per iteration and, some numerical results are reported.

In this article we consider an equilibrium problem for a differentiable bifunction which is not necessarily monotone. We present an implementable projection method. At each iteration, only one inexact projection onto a simple approximation of the constraint set is performed, such as a polyhedron, which renders it numerically attractive. The algorithm can identify, in practice, a subsequence that converges to a solution under reasonable assumptions. Some numerical results are reported showing the performance of our algorithm.

During the pneumatic conveying of plastic pellets, it has been observed that materials with similar physical characteristics may develop a substantial difference in pressure drop. In this work, the pressure drop in a particle-laden 2.7 meter long horizontal channel with circular cross-section is presented from an experimental perspective. Experiments are carried out for cylindrical polystyrene beads with an average diameter of 3.2 mm and mass loadings of 0.06 to 0.11 (kg particles/kg gas). The air mass flow rate was studied in the range from 0.085 kg/s to 0.170 kg/s. The pressure drop curve is shown as a function of air velocity and particle load. Response surface methodology showed high statistical significance for air velocity, particle load and their cross-relation.

Criminal traces commonly found at crime scenes may present mixtures from two or more individuals. The scene of the crime is important for the collection of various types of traces in order to find the perpetrator of the crime. Thus, we propose that hematophagous mosquitoes found at crime scenes can be used to perform genetic testing of human blood and aid in suspect investigation. The aim of the study was to obtain a single Aedes aegypti mosquito profile from a human DNA mixture containing genetic materials of four individuals. We also determined the effect of blood acquisition time by setting time intervals of 24, 48, and 72 h after the blood meal. STR loci and amelogenin were analyzed, and the results showed that human DNA profiles could be obtained from hematophagous mosquitos at 24 h following the blood meal. It is possible that hematophagous mosquitoes can be used as biological remains at the scene of the crime, and can be used to detect human DNA profiles of up to four individuals.

Pernambuco is one of the 27 federal units of Brazil, ranking seventh in the number of inhabitants. We examined the allele frequencies of 13 short tandem repeat loci (CFS1PO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, FGA, TH01, vWA, and TPOX), the minimum recommended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and commonly used in forensic genetics laboratories in Brazil, in a sample of 609 unrelated individuals from all geographic regions of Pernambuco. The allele frequencies ranged from 5 to 47.2%. No significant differences for any loci analyzed were observed compared with other publications in other various regions of Brazil. Most of the markers observed were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The occurrence of the allele 47.2 (locus FGA) and alleles 35.1 and 39 (locus D21S11), also described in a single study of the Brazilian population, was observed. The other forensic parameters analyzed (matching probability, power of discrimination, polymorphic information content, paternity exclusion, complement factor I, observed heterozygosity, expected heterozygosity) indicated that the studied markers are very informative for human forensic identification purposes in the Pernambuco population.

There has been a dramatic increase in the substitution of fuel with waste (i.e. co-incineration) in the European cement industry and it is reported that waste co-incineration has comparatively low atmospheric emissions. Against this background, a laboratory test was conducted to study the difference in product quality between a sample from a waste co-incineration test using a relatively high chlorine content and that from a blank test. Both samples had the proper fixation of trace metals and a similar strengthening pattern of concrete pieces, but the amount of Cl (∼77 mg L−1) leached from the waste co-incineration piece was far greater than that (∼5 mg L−1) leached from the blank testpiece. The experiments by the authors show that under the high chlorine conditions adopted in the experiments, the results suggest that dioxin-like pollutants generated by waste coincineration adhere to the clinker and/or dust in a kiln. In such circumstances, co-incineration would not be suitable for treating chlorid...

Investigations of any type of crime invariably starts at the crime scene by collecting evidence. Thus, the purpose of this research was to collect and analyze an entomological trace from an environment that is similar to those of indoor crime scenes. Hematophagous mosquitoes were collected from two residential units; saliva of volunteers that were residents in the units was also collected for genetic analysis as reference samples. We examined the allele frequencies of 15 short tandem repeat loci (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818, and FGA) and amelogenin. A total of 26 female hematophagous mosquitoes were identified as Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, and Culex quinquefasciatus; we were able to obtain 11 forensically valid genetic profiles, with a minimum of 0.028203 ng/μL of human DNA. Thus, the results of this study showed that it was possible to correlate human genetic information from mosquitoes with the volunteer reference samples, which validates the use of this information as forensic evidence. Furthermore, we observed mixed genetic profiles from one mosquito. Therefore, it is clearly important to collect these insects indoors where crimes were committed, because it may be possible to find intact genetic profiles of suspects in the blood found in the digestive tract of hematophagous mosquitoes for later comparison to identify an offender and/or exclude suspects.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the public and occupational exposure to radon and metal-bearing particles in museums and public buildings located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For this study, four buildings were selected: two historic buildings, which currently house an art gallery and an art museum; and two modern buildings, a chapel and a club. Integrated radon concentration measurements were performed using passive radon detectors with solid state nuclear track detector-type Lexan used as nuclear track detector. Air samplers with a cyclone were used to collect the airborne particle samples that were analyzed by the particle-induced X-ray emission technique. The average unattached-radon concentrations in indoor air in the buildings were above 40 Bq/m(3), with the exception of Building D as measured in 2009. The average radon concentrations in indoor air in the four buildings in 2009 were below the recommended reference level by World Health Organization (100 Bq/m(3)); however, in 2011, the average concentrations of radon in Buildings A and C were above this level, though lower than 300 Bq/m(3). The average concentrations of unattached radon were lower than 148 Bq/m(3) (4pCi/L), the USEPA level recommended to take action to reduce the concentrations of radon in indoor air. The unattached-radon average concentrations were also lower than the value recommended by the European Union for new houses. As the unattached-radon concentrations were below the international level recommended to take action to reduce the radon concentration in air, it was concluded that during the period of sampling, there was low risk to human health due to the inhalation of unattached radon in these four buildings.

This paper presents a method to classify the current polluted level on insulator surfaces, i.e., to diagnose the operational conditions of the electrical system isolation through pattern recognition techniques using the ultrasonic signals obtained from surface discharges on outdoor insulators. Pattern extraction techniques on the input signals by Artificial Neural Networks were used in order to enable a reliable computation during the training. It can be point out that the area centroid of the ultrasonic signals showed a powerful extraction technique. Here, the Multilayer Perceptron Network was used as a single classifier or as a combination of multiple classifiers. Moreover, the developed networks have one or six neurons in their output layer to represent the classes of pollution. A comparison among the four developed neural net models shows the improvement of the networks with six output neurons and that the use of combined models is a powerful technique for this type of application.

The Lusitanian pine vole (Microtus lusitanicus (Gerbe, 1879)) and the Mediterranean pine vole (Microtus duo- decimcostatus de Selys-Longchamps, 1839) are sister species with burrowing habits and a restricted European distribution. Our aim was to assess the relative effect of environmental, soil, and spatial characteristics on the distribution of these spe- cies in Portugal, and obtain predicted occurrence maps for each species, particularly to identify areas of sympatry. We used spatial eigenvector mapping (SEVM) to describe the spatial autocorrelation in species data, and we partitioned the variance in species distributions to quantify the relative effects of environmental, soil, and spatial characteristics. The spa- tial variables explained the major part of variability in both species distributions and were more important than environ- mental or soil variables. The Lusitanian pine vole occurs in areas outside landscape units of grassland, higher rainfall, frost, and cambisols, with mostly acid soils, lower abundance of litosols, and presence of solonshaks. The Mediterranean pine vole is distributed in grassland areas within intermediate values of soil pH, dominated by litosols and luvisols, and lower rainfall, frost, and cambisols. Our results showed disjunct sympatric areas of small size and a parapatry boundary for the centre of Portugal, suggesting that contact zones are probably narrow. Resume´ : Le campagnol basque (Microtus lusitanicus (Gerbe, 1879)) et le campagnol provencal (Microtus duodecimcosta- tus de Selys-Longchamps, 1839) sont des especes-sœurs qui construisent des terriers et qui possedent une repartition re- streinte en Europe. Notre objectif est d'evaluer les effets relatifs des caracteristiques environnementales, pedologiques et spatiales sur la repartition de ces especes au Portugal, de produire des cartes de l'occurrence predite pour chaque espece et, en particulier, d'identifier les zones de sympatrie. Nous utilisons l'analyse spatiale par vecteurs propres (SEVM) pour decrire l'autocorrelation spatiale dans les donnees des deux especes et nous partitionnons la variance dans les repartitions des especes afin de mesurer les effets relatifs des caracteristiques environnementales, pedologiques et spatiales. Les varia- bles spatiales expliquent la plus grande partie de la variabilitedes repartitions des deux especes et elles sont plus impor- tantes que les variables de l'environnement ou du sol. Le campagnol basque se retrouve al'exterieur des unitesd e paysage de prairies, dans des zones a pluviosite ´, gel et cambisols plus frequents, surtout avec des sols acides, une quantite ´ reduite de lithosols et une presence de solonchaks. Le campagnol provencal se repartit dans les zones de prairies, avec un pH intermediaire du sol, dominepar des lithosols et des luvisols et avec pluviosite ´, gel et cambisols moins importants. Nos resultats montrent l'existence de zones disjointes de sympatrie de petite taille et une frontiere de parapatrie au centre du Portugal, ce qui laisse croire que les zones de contact sont probablement etroites. (Traduit par la Redaction)

An out-of-equilibrium description of spin-transfer effect is proposed, based on the spin-injection mechanism occurring at the junction with a ferromagnet. The effect of spin injection is to locally modify, in the ferromagnetic configuration space, the density of magnetic moments. The corresponding gradient leads to a currentdependent diffusion process of magnetization. In order to describe this effect, the dynamics of the magnetization of a ferromagnetic single domain is reconsidered in the framework of the thermokinetic theory of mesoscopic systems. Assuming an Onsager cross coefficient that couples the currents, it is shown that spindependent electric transport leads to a correction of the Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation of the ferromagnetic order parameter with supplementary diffusion terms. The consequence of spin injection in terms of the activation process of the ferromagnet is deduced, and the expressions of the effective energy barrier and of the critical current are derived. Magnetic fluctuations are calculated: the correction to the fluctuations is similar to that predicted for the activation. These predictions are consistent with the measurements of spin transfer obtained both in the activation regime and for ferromagnetic resonance under spin injection.

Health situation analysis has been used to understand complex health processes and to contribute to decision-making in public policies. This paper analyzes the spatial relationship between mortality patterns in the city of Rio de Janeiro (1996-1998) and socioeconomic profiles of neighborhoods. Mortality data were collected from the Municipal Health Department and population data were obtained from the National Census Bureau (IBGE) (1991 and 1996). Neighborhoods were aggregated through the K-means cluster method into 4 homogeneous socioeconomic groups, and the mortality indicators distribution was analyzed by different strata. General mortality, circulatory disease mortality, mortality from poorly defined causes, and mortality from violent causes all displayed large differences among socioeconomic groups. The spatial pattern of the socioeconomic strata allowed the identification of different living conditions, which involved specific mortality patterns. Higher socioeconomic strata presented low mortality figures for all causes.

Coffee is basically consumed for the pleasure given by its taste and aroma, that is, the quality and acceptance of the coffee beverage are directly related to its sensorial characteristics. Thus, nowadays coffee quality is basically evaluated by sensorial analysis. However, together with this kind of analysis, it should be important to have available more objective chemical methods to assess coffee quality. One possible approach could be based on the analysis of chlorogenic acids (CGA), since they are considered precursors of coffee flavour and pigments during roasting. In the present work, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of chlorogenic acids was applied to six different Brazilian arabica green coffee samples which were previously characterised by sensorial analysis. The results showed the potential to correlate the chemical data, evaluated by the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) statistical method, with sensorial analysis in order to discriminate the quality of the samples. It was observed that the 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic (3,4-diCQA) and 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic (3,5-diCQA) isomers are very important for grouping the coffees into good and bad samples.

Exposure assessment of population groups is based on linkage of environmental and health data. This relationship can be hard to establish due to spatial and temporal lags in data sets. Environmental data generally refer to scattered sampling points, while epidemiological data integrate periods of time within administrative territories. GIS can be used as a basis for organizing health-related and environmental data sets. We examined potential health risk in the Rio de Janeiro city water supply based on the overlay of information layers containing data on the presence and quality of water supply services. We used census tracts as the primary georeferenced data, since they contain information on how households are supplied, water supply pipes, sources, and reservoirs, and water quality according to the monitoring program. Population groups exposed to risks were located and quantified using spatial operations among these layers and adopting different risk criteria. The main problems related to water supply are located on the northern slope of the Tijuca Mountain Range (involving the absence or poor quality of water) and in the western area of the city of Rio, where the population relies on alternative water supply sources. The different origins, objectives, and structures of data have to be analyzed critically, and GIS can be used as a data validation tool as well as an instrument for detailed identification of inconsistencies.

A 15-year-old boy with no prior medical problems ingested cyclohexanone in a suicide attempt. The patient developed altered mental status, shock, metabolic acidosis, chemical hepatitis, and renal insufficiency. In addition, he developed rhabdomyolysis as evidenced by muscle pain, increased serum creatine phosphokinase levels and myoglobinuria. He was treated successfully with intubation, fluid resuscitation, dopamine, and activated charcoal. The patient was discharged without clinical sequelae. Renal involvement, chemical hepatitis, shock, and metabolic acidosis following oral ingestion of hydrocarbon containing solutions have been well described in the literature. To our knowledge, the development of rhabdomyolysis following an oral ingestion of a hydrocarbon was reported only once in an adult patient and never in an adolescent. We reviewed literature pertaining to the occurrence, pathophysiology, and etiology of rhabdomyolysis in hydrocarbon intoxication.

The amplification of the D1S80 locus, a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) locus, by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), (Saiki et al, 1985) is an effective tool to forensic analysis (Budowle et al, 1995).