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Brazil is one of the countries most affected by COVID-19, with the highest number of deaths recorded. Brazilian Health Institutions have reported four main peaks of positive COVID-19 cases. The last two waves were characterized by the emergence of the VOC Omicron and its sublineages. This study aimed to conduct a retrospective surveillance study illustrating the emergence, dissemination, and diversification of the VOC Omicron in 15 regional health units (RHUs) in MG, the second most populous state in Brazil, by combining epidemiological and genomic data. A total of 5643 confirmed positive COVID-19 samples were genotyped using the panels TaqMan SARS-CoV-2 Mutation and 4Plex SC2/VOC Bio-Manguinhos to define mutations classifying the BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 sublineages. While sublineages BA.1 and BA.2 were more prevalent during the third wave, BA.4 and BA.5 dominated the fourth wave in the state. Epidemiological and viral genome data suggest that age and vaccination with booster doses were the main factors related to clinical outcomes, reducing the number of deaths, irrespective of the Omicron sublineages. Complete genome sequencing of 253 positive samples confirmed the circulation of the BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 subvariants, and phylogenomic analysis demonstrated that the VOC Omicron was introduced through multiple international events, followed by transmission within the state of MG. In addition to the four subvariants, other lineages have been identified at low frequency, including BQ.1.1 and XAG. This integrative study reinforces that the evolution of Omicron sublineages was the most significant factor driving the highest peaks of positive COVID-19 cases without an increase in more severe cases, prevented by vaccination boosters.

The historical use of plants as sources of natural compounds has persisted over time. Increasing the intake of bioactive substances shows significant potential for promoting overall well-being and health. This study delves into the pigments, phenolic composition, and profile, along with antioxidant properties, of leaf extracts rich in bioactives from plants in the Azores region, contributing to sustainable primary food production. Analyses encompassed chlorophylls, carotenoids, total phenols, ortho-diphenols, and flavonoids, as well as antioxidant capacity assessment, polyphenolic profiling, and quantification. Psidium guajava L. and Smallanthus sonchifolius (Poepp.) H.Rob. exhibited elevated chlorophyll content, while Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott displayed the highest carotenoid levels. Annona cherimola Mill., Eriobotrya japonica (Thunb.) Lindl, and Psidium guajava L. demonstrated pronounced total phenols, ortho-diphenols, and flavonoids. These findings align with heightened antioxidant capacity. HPLC–DAD (high-performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection) characterization unveiled elevated hydroxycinnamic acids in E. japonica and Ipomea batatas (L.) Lam. compared to A. cherimola Mill., while C. esculenta exhibited increased flavone content. Among the quantified compounds, flavonols were the ones that predominantly demonstrated contribution to the antioxidant capacity of these leaves. This research highlights Azorean leaf plants’ antioxidant potential, fostering natural product development for better health.

Abstract Background The heel is a complex anatomical region and is very often the source of pain complaints. The medial heel contains a number of structures, capable of compressing the main nerves of the region and knowing its anatomical topography is mandatory. The purpose of this work is to evaluate if tibial nerve (TN) and its main branches relate to the main anatomical landmarks of the ankle's medial side and if so, do they have a regular path after emerging from TN. Methods The distal part of the legs, ankles and feet of 12 Thiel embalmed cadavers were dissected. The pattern of the branches of the TN was registered and the measurements were performed according to the Dellon–McKinnon malleolar‐calcaneal line (DML) and the Heimkes Triangle (HT). Results The TN divided proximal to DML in 87.5%, on top of the DML in 12,5% and distal in none of the feet. The Baxter's nerve (BN) originated proximally in 50%, on top of the DML in 12,5% and distally in 37.5% of the cases. There was a strong and significant correlation between the length of DML and the distance from the center of the medial malleolus (MM) to the lateral plantar nerve (LPN), medial plantar (MPN) nerve, BN and Medial Calcaneal Nerve (MCN) (ρ: 0.910, 0.866, 0.970 and 0.762 respectively, p

The concept of localized and diffuse tenosynovial giant cell tumors (TSGCT) is recent and may still cause some confusion among surgeons. This disorder constitutes a family of proliferative lesions characterized by their origin in the articular synovium, tendon sheaths, or bursa. It is not always easy to diagnose this pathology, especially due to its multitude of presentation. We describe an incidentally found localized TSGCT intra-articularly located in the shoulder. The localized lesions are considered a more benign form that usually present not with specific symptoms but rather a manifestation of the disturbance in the affected joint or the surrounding soft tissues. MRI is indispensable for its diagnosis, and the standard treatment is complete surgical resection. Due to its low incidence, it is difficult to find literature that goes beyond clinical reports or small case series. With this report, we intend to call readers’ attention for the variable presentations, the different diagnostic and treatment strategies, and the expected outcomes.

The possibility of introducing high-speed trains in Portugal will challenge the regular train circulation of existing railways tracks. To carry this traffic, improvements and maintenance programmes will be intensified together with the evaluation of the railway performance and its consequences on neighbourhood structures, including the execution of several vibration measurement tests. One of them was performed in Lisbon's urban area for measure of ground-borne vibration due to the train traffic. It was used to develop an efficient numerical model, which allowed to study the influence of introducing high-speed vehicles on the generation and propagation of vibrations through the free field and the impact on the wayside buildings. To access the effect of introducing such trains in the existing tracks, three bi-dimensional numerical models for each measurement profile were developed. Numerical models were calibrated using the monitoring records. Then, new simulations were performed with Thalys HST train allowing to conclude that the introduction of high-speed trains will not lead to an increase of level of vibrations, for the adopted traffic conditions.

Brazil currently ranks second in absolute deaths by COVID-19, even though most of its population has completed the vaccination protocol. With the introduction of Omicron in late 2021, the number of COVID-19 cases soared once again in the country. We investigated in this work how lineages BA.1 and BA.2 entered and spread in the country by sequencing 2173 new SARS-CoV-2 genomes collected between October 2021 and April 2022 and analyzing them in addition to more than 18,000 publicly available sequences with phylodynamic methods. We registered that Omicron was present in Brazil as early as 16 November 2021 and by January 2022 was already more than 99% of samples. More importantly, we detected that Omicron has been mostly imported through the state of São Paulo, which in turn dispersed the lineages to other states and regions of Brazil. This knowledge can be used to implement more efficient non-pharmaceutical interventions against the introduction of new SARS-CoV variants focused on surveillance of airports and ground transportation.

In this paper we propose a distributed architecture to provide machine learning practitioners with a set of tools and cloud services that cover the whole machine learning development cycle: ranging from the models creation, training, validation and testing to the models serving as a service, sharing and publication. In such respect, the DEEP-Hybrid-DataCloud framework allows transparent access to existing e-Infrastructures, effectively exploiting distributed resources for the most compute-intensive tasks coming from the machine learning development cycle. Moreover, it provides scientists with a set of Cloud-oriented services to make their models publicly available, by adopting a serverless architecture and a DevOps approach, allowing an easy share, publish and deploy of the developed models.

The paper presents a review of the literature and advances a set of propositions concerning the employees’ perceptions on the relationship between human resource management and organizational performance. The study is aimed at filling the gap in the literature on the employees’ perception regarding human resource policies and the relationship to organizational performance. Social information processing theory is used to advance the insights on how employees’ performance about human resource policies may influence the organizational performance. The review indicated that there is a positive relationship between the employees’ perceptions of human resource policies and overall performance of a given organization. A positive perception of the implemented policies influences various individual outcomes such as commitment, engagement, and satisfaction, amongst others. Shared perceptions among the employees are also considered to have a considerable impact on the organizational performance. Nevertheless, there is a need for further research to explore the relationship between human resource management and organizational performance in more detail.

Resumo Este artigo reconstrói as principais teses e influências intelectuais dos bacharéis udenistas, tratando do pensamento político de personagens como Afonso Arinos, Bilac Pinto, Aliomar Baleeiro, Milton Campos e Prado Kelly. Para a tarefa, são mobilizados escritos jurídicos, memórias, discursos parlamentares e outras reflexões que permitam caracterizar esse pensamento que é voltado à ação, mas que também é expressão de uma visão de mundo transcendente à disputa política mais imediata. O texto se divide em três partes. Na primeira, trata da autoimagem dos bacharéis em oposição à categoria antagônica dos juristas, e distingue dois tipos ideais: os conservadores e os modernizantes. A segunda seção aborda o tipo de liberalismo dos bacharéis, visto como chave para a compreensão das suas trajetórias. Por fim, o trabalho se concentra nos argumentos dos autores sobre as relações entre elites e direito, com o intuito de melhor compreender o sentido da sua missão política e das suas trajetórias ao longo da República de 1946.

This data article describes biomechanical and histological information of abdominal aortas harvested in autopsy. Eight abdominal aorta aneurysms (AAA) and 30 normal diameter abdominal aortas were collected and submitted to an inflation test up to their rupture. This inflation procedure was part of the research entitled “Experimental study of rupture pressure and elasticity of abdominal aortic aneurysms found at autopsy”, submitted to Annals of Vascular Surgery.The rupture borders and control samples (harvested from places other than the rupture site) were submitted to uniaxial destructive tensile test and to histological analysis. The following variables were evaluated in the biomechanical test: failure stress, failure tension and failure strain. The histological processing of the samples enabled a quantitative analysis of the percentage of coverage of collagen fibers and elastic fibers in the samples.The present data could be reutilized because they are experimental evidence that cadaveric abdominal aortas, even when previously stressed by inflation, conserve significant resistance against tearing comparable to no previously stressed aortas described in the literature. Considering real whole cadaveric AAAs are especially scarce, this information would be a useful reference source for further in-depth research in the aortic biomechanics field.

The present dataset describes the biomechanical properties of the supra-aortic trunks (brachiocephalic trunk, left common carotid artery, and left subclavian artery) and some of the visceral branches of the abdominal aorta (celiac trunk, superior mesenteric artery, and renal arteries). The specimens have been harvested from 27 adult donors during the autopsy procedure. The vessels were submitted to uniaxial biomechanical tensile tests, and values of failure stress, failure tension, and failure strain were obtained. As atherosclerosis could affect any of those vessels producing a significant reduction in their lumen, the data presented here could be of great interest to vascular surgeons, interventional cardiologists, and interventional neuroradiologists, who manipulate these arteries endovascularly. The observations gathered here are experimental evidence of the vessels’ endurance against tearing and of their deformability. Therefore this data article could also help the medical industry dedicated to the production of endovascular devices. This dataset is related to the article entitled “Left Common Carotid Artery Biomechanical Properties in Individuals over 80 years: Women Have Stiffer Vessels” published in Annals of Vascular Surgery in August 2020 [1].

Modelos computacionais de exposição (MCEs) são usados em dosimetria numérica para estimar a dose absorvida (energia depositada/ massa) nos órgãos e tecidos radiossensíveis do corpo humano. Um MCE é composto, fundamentalmente, por um fantoma computacional, um algoritmo simulador de uma fonte radioativa e um código Monte Carlo para simular o transporte e a interação da radiação com a matéria. Para que os dados obtidos na simulação sejam mais fidedignos, as características do fantoma utilizado devem ser ajustadas para representar o indivíduo irradiado de forma mais realista possível. Este trabalho teve por objetivo adaptar o fantoma de malhas poligonais denominado MARTIN para reproduzir de forma fidedigna o momento em que o indivíduo ocupacionalmente exposto faz a administração de radiofármacos, via endovenosa, em pacientes do setor de medicina nuclear.

The aim of this paper is to understand how workers’ perceptions and behaviors contribute to understanding the association between human resources management (HRM) and organizational performance (OP). Over the past few decades, theory construction has lagged the intermediate linkages between HRM and OP, and, therefore, there are still many unanswered questions with regards to such an association. To sustain the HRM-OP link, the authors highlight the potential influence of employees’ work engagement (WE), with the aim of exploring some of the intermediating variables, focusing on the perceptions of employees’ attitudes and behaviors. This research emphasizes that line managers have a crucial role to play in stimulating employees’ efforts and in shaping HR-related outcomes. Line managers act as crucial intermediaries in determining how HR policies that lead to OP can be designed and administered. Nevertheless, line managers have the capability to disrupt or stimulate the system, which has a significant impact on employees’ engagement with the organization. The empirical research is based on a sample of 1,609 employees and 40 organizations and was carried out in two settings. Results suggest that line managers and employees’ perceptions of HR policies were positively related to line managers’ perceptions of OP. The results also support a path model, whereby WE strengthens HR systems’ association with enhanced levels of OP. The discussion reviews the implications of these results and suggests future directions for research.

Organizations create competitive advantage by creating more economic value than their rivals. Increasing business competition and information technology development have both led to huge corporate organizational changes and have raised the importance of intangible assets along the value chain. Value creation and the success of organizations increasingly depends on the leverage of knowledge available internally, as nowadays it has become essential to understand employee portals’ business value and to build adequate change management programmes. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Strategy Map (SM) show an organization’s objectives, how they are achieved, and the link between the goals of the various sub-units and how these act together to produce the overall results. BSC and SM clarify how intangible assets are aligned with strategy, to create value for the organization. However, the concerns related to change management seem not to have been properly addressed. To conveniently deal with these matters, the authors propose a framework to map the cause-effect relationships that generates business value, as well as provides top management and decision makers with the information needed for a suitable top-down commitment and sponsorship, which is essential to bring about the appropriate change management and benefits’ realization. SM and Benefits Dependency Network (BDN) were combined, resulting in a suitable framework to help organizations enhance their knowledge, mitigating the risk of investment failure or misuse, and a timely contribution to capture more value from investments in intangible assets. The developed framework helps organizations address their concerns related to value creation and change management, and it has been applied to this Employee Portal case study. This case study allows us to conclude that, although the promotion of organizational culture and corporate alignment are not usually frequent goals of organizations, and do not motivate investments in the development of employee portals, they are generally recognised as being essential tools for decision-making and value creation.

O objetivo deste artigo foi realizar um ensaio teórico sobre as possibilidades de elaboração de uma estética da subjetivação de uma posição gerencial nos neosujeitos, através da topologia lacaniana dos registros: Real, Simbólico e Imaginário vinculados a uma analitica do corpo. A partir da ideia de corpo atravessado pela linguagem, pelas imagens e habitado pelo gozo, percorremos um percurso marcado pelo papel da cultura organizacional, do narcisismo, do reconhecimento e do enfrentamento da contingência para pensarmos o processo de subjetivação articulado a multiplicidade de experiências vivenciadas pelos neosujeitos nestes três registros.

Introduction: Excessive portal venous pressure in the liver remnant is an independent factor in the occurrence of posthepatectomy liver failure and small-for-size syndrome. The baseline portal pressure prior to hepatectomy was not considered previously. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of portal pressure change during hepatectomy on the patient outcome. Material and Methods: Prospective observational study including 30 patients subjected to intraoperative measurement of portal pressure before and after hepatectomy. This variation was related to the patient outcome. Control group evaluation was assessed. Patient, disease and procedure features were considered. The optimal cut-off of portal pressure variation was determined. Linear regression or logistic regression was applied to identify predictors of the outcome. Results: The univariate analysis showed that portal pressure increase after hepatectomy was associated with coagulation impairment in the first 30 postoperative days (p < 0.05), and with the occurrence of major complications (p = 0.01), namely hepatic failure (p = 0.041). The multivariate analysis showed that portal venous pressure increase ≥ 2 mmHg is an independent factor for worse outcomes. Discussion: As in previous studies, this study concludes that, after hepatectomy, in addition to the functional liver remnant, other factors are responsible for deterioration of liver function and patient outcome, such as the portal pressure increase and the exposure to chemotherapy prior to hepatectomy. This work may influence the definition of future indications for portal influx modulation. Conclusion: Patient outcomes are influenced by the portal venous pressure increase: an increment ≥ 2 mmHg after hepatectomy seems to increase the risk of major complications.

O presente artigo visa analisar as práticas discursivas de representação da nação portuguesa a partir dos discursos de Tomada de Posse dos Primeiros-Ministros, Pedro Passos Coelho e António Costa (em junho de 2011 e novembro de 2015, respetivamente). Com base numa abordagem propositadamente transdisciplinar, a análise permite identificar e compreender os mecanismos usados pela voz do poder português para reforçar a sua legitimidade, impor um determinado estilo de liderança e apresentar a sua conceção ideológica da nação, através de estratégias que visam promover a adesão a esta visão, por parte do público-alvo. No final, demonstra-se que apesar do caráter distintivo da visão que cada um dos dirigentes preconiza para o futuro do país, as opções discursivas escolhidas para veicular essa visão, bem como a argumentação que sustenta os seus discursos, se aproximam grandemente, dadas as características em comum que apresentam.

O presente artigo visa analisar as práticas discursivas de representação da nação portuguesa a partir dos discursos de Tomada de Posse dos Primeiros-Ministros, Pedro Passos Coelho e António Costa (em junho de 2011 e novembro de 2015, respetivamente). Com base numa abordagem propositadamente transdisciplinar, a análise permite identificar e compreender os mecanismos usados pela voz do poder português para reforçar a sua legitimidade, impor um determinado estilo de liderança e apresentar a sua conceção ideológica da nação, através de estratégias que visam promover a adesão a esta visão, por parte do público-alvo. No final, demonstra-se que apesar do caráter distintivo da visão que cada um dos dirigentes preconiza para o futuro do país, as opções discursivas escolhidas para veicular essa visão, bem como a argumentação que sustenta os seus discursos, se aproximam grandemente, dadas as características em comum que apresentam. Palavras chave: poder, Estado, discurso político, representação, identidade

BACKGROUND:Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) impacts differently on patients at similar grades, suggesting that factors other than lung function may influence patients' experience of the disease. Recent studies have found associations between genetic variations and patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Identifying these associations might be fundamental to predict the disease progression and develop tailored interventions. This systematic review aimed to identify the genetic variations associated with PROs in COPD. METHODS AND FINDINGS:Databases were searched until July 2017 (PROSPERO: CRD42016041639) and additional searches were conducted scanning the reference list of the articles. Two independent reviewers assessed the quality of studies using the Q-Genie checklist. This instrument is composed of 11 questions, each subdivided in 7 options from 1 poor-7 excellent. Thirteen studies reporting 5 PROs in association with genes were reviewed. Studies were rated between "good quality" (n = 8) and "moderate" (n = 5). The most reported PRO was frequency of exacerbations (n = 7/13), which was mainly associated with MBL2 gene variants. Other PRO's were health-related quality of life (HRQOL) (n = 4/13), depressive symptoms (n = 1/13), exacerbation severity (n = 1/13) and breathlessness, cough and sputum (n = 1/13), which were commonly associated with other genetic variants. CONCLUSIONS:Although a limited number of PRO's have been related to genetic variations, findings suggest that there is a significant association between specific gene variants and the number/severity of exacerbations, depressive symptoms and HRQOL. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and assess the genetic influence on other dimensions of patients' lives, since it may enhance our understanding and management of COPD.

In the rapidly-changing environments characterizing most industries today, organizations face intense competitive pressure to do things better, faster and cheaper. The business environment of the 1990s has been subjected to rapid and accelerated change that creates more and more uncertainty and complexity. Most markets are becoming increasingly dynamic. Organizations can no longer rely on a traditional analytical approach to understand their industry or market, since that market is changing in rapid and unexpected ways. In spite of its worldwide dissemination, Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has demonstrated inadequacy in certain circumstances. Some of the original advantages of the BSC can nowadays be interpreted as weaknesses. We suggest that in business dynamic environments the benefits management approach, by using the benefits dependency network can help BSCs to guide and support the benefits achievement related with investments, in a complementary way. By using a case study we try to show how a BSC exhibits limitations to deal with business disruptive environments and how a benefits management approach brings a strengthened business implementation vision, from strategy down to operations.

Swarm robotics is a promising approach for the coordination of large numbers of robots. While previous studies have shown that evolutionary robotics techniques can be applied to obtain robust and efficient self-organized behaviors for robot swarms, most studies have been conducted in simulation, and the few that have been conducted on real robots have been confined to laboratory environments. In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time a swarm robotics system with evolved control successfully operating in a real and uncontrolled environment. We evolve neural network-based controllers in simulation for canonical swarm robotics tasks, namely homing, dispersion, clustering, and monitoring. We then assess the performance of the controllers on a real swarm of up to ten aquatic surface robots. Our results show that the evolved controllers transfer successfully to real robots and achieve a performance similar to the performance obtained in simulation. We validate that the evolved controllers display key properties of swarm intelligence-based control, namely scalability, flexibility, and robustness on the real swarm. We conclude with a proof-of-concept experiment in which the swarm performs a complete environmental monitoring task by combining multiple evolved controllers.

Brazil is one of the countries most affected by COVID-19, with the highest number of deaths recorded. Brazilian Health Institutions have reported four main peaks of positive COVID-19 cases. The last two waves were characterized by the emergence of the VOC Omicron and its sublineages. This study aimed to conduct a retrospective surveillance study illustrating the emergence, dissemination, and diversification of the VOC Omicron in 15 regional health units (RHUs) in MG, the second most populous state in Brazil, by combining epidemiological and genomic data. A total of 5643 confirmed positive COVID-19 samples were genotyped using the panels TaqMan SARS-CoV-2 Mutation and 4Plex SC2/VOC Bio-Manguinhos to define mutations classifying the BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 sublineages. While sublineages BA.1 and BA.2 were more prevalent during the third wave, BA.4 and BA.5 dominated the fourth wave in the state. Epidemiological and viral genome data suggest that age and vaccination with booster doses were the main factors related to clinical outcomes, reducing the number of deaths, irrespective of the Omicron sublineages. Complete genome sequencing of 253 positive samples confirmed the circulation of the BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 subvariants, and phylogenomic analysis demonstrated that the VOC Omicron was introduced through multiple international events, followed by transmission within the state of MG. In addition to the four subvariants, other lineages have been identified at low frequency, including BQ.1.1 and XAG. This integrative study reinforces that the evolution of Omicron sublineages was the most significant factor driving the highest peaks of positive COVID-19 cases without an increase in more severe cases, prevented by vaccination boosters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Com o fim de produzir o fenômeno de KOCH, os A. A. inocularam em 30 leprosos da Colônia Mirueira (Recife), de várias idades e formas clínicas, emulsões vivas de três culturas de bacilos ácido-álcool resistentes isolados de leprosos pro um dêles (S.A.). As doses inoculadas foram de 0,2 cc., por via intradérmica, em cada doente, das amostras "CII", "E" e "H" e mais da Leprolina S.A. (antígeno morto). No 10º dia da inoculação verificou-se que 24 dos 30 pacientes tiveram reação geral intensa; 2, reação moderada e 4, nenhuma reação geral. 16 dos 30 tiveram reação leprótica, sendo 10 em casos ativos (lepromatosos) e 6 em inativos, e 17 dos 30 tiveram adenopatias inguinais. O inóculo "CII" produziu escaras de 1 x 1 e 2 x 2 cm. de diâmetro, com destruição total da pele, nos 30 pacientes (o total dêles); o inóculo "E" produziu escaras de igual intensidade em 29, o inóculo "H", escaras muitos mais benignas em 23, e a Leprolina em 10, naturalmente por ação concomitante de um dos outros três inóculos. No 10º dia foram semeadas em meio de LOEWENSTEIN secreções das escaras de sete dos 30 doentes, num total de 20 tubos, dos quais 19 produziram retroculuras, a amioria contaminada por fungos ou por bactérias cianófilas. De um doente foi obtido retrocultura cromogênica da escara produzida na intradérmoreação pela "Leprolina S. A.", macro e microscòpricamente indiferencável das amostras "CII" e "E". Aliás, pela extensiva experimentação feita com estas duas amostras, estamos nos inclinando por considerá-las como idênticas. No 18º dia da inoculação foram feitos 30 esfregaços de secreções de lesões experimentais de 13 doentes, com 15 resultados positivos (50%), apesar do exame tardio. As morfologias macro e microscópica das retroculturas obtidas em Recife confirmam os caracteres descritos nas culturas originais. Dêste rápido ensaio se conclui que a maioria dos pacientes apresentou o fenômeno de KOCH parcial ou integral, com as clássicas reações gerais, focais e locais. A falta de recursos de laboratório na Colônia não permitiu melhor aproveitamento de tão precioso material experimental, e por isso êste trabalho apresenta várias lacunas.With the aim to produce the KOCH's phenomenon, the A. A. incoulated 30 lepers of the Colonia Mirueira (Recife), from various ages and clinical types, with alive suspensios of three strains of acid-fast bacilli isolated from lepers. Each volunteer received three intradermical inoculations in his thighs, of 0.2 c.c. each from strains "Chaves II", "Emília", and "Hecke" and in his left forea rom 0.2 c.c. of Leprolina S.A. (killed antigen). At the 10th day of inoculation were verified that 24 out of the 30 volunteers had severe general reaction, 2, moderate ones and 4, nothing. 16 out of the 30 had leprosy reaction, being 10 lepromatous cases and 6 inactive oens. The inoculum "C II" produced craters, of 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 cm. diameter in the 30 patients (total), craters with complete destruction of the skin; the inoculum "E" did the same in 29, of equal severety and the inoculum "H" did only in 23, but lesions of minor severety and the "L" produced craters in ten patients, evidently due to the concomitant action of one of the three inocula. At the same 10th day were inoculated secretions onto 20 tubes of LOEWENSTEIN medium of seven patients. 18 days later were seen developpment of retrocultures in 19 ou 20 tubes, the mojority being contaminated by fungs or cyanophile bacteria. From one patient (nº 16) was recovered a chromogenic culture from his Leprolin-test, macro and microscopically undistinguishable from strain "C II" or "E", which, based on a large experimentation the senior writer is inclined to consider as identical. At the 18 th day were made smears from lesions of 13 patients, 30 in total with 15 positive (50%) for one or another of the inocula. The macro and microscopical morphologies of the recovered cultures (retrocultrues) coincide with the characteristics of the original cultures from which the inocula were made. In conclusion, the majority of the patients showed partial or integral KOCH's prenomenon, with its classical general, local and focal reactions. By lack of laboratory resource, at the leper Colony, the precious material available from this series of experiments were not used, resulting in omissions of various kind in this paper.