Behaviour of micropiles in heterogeneous coarse soils

This paper reports on an experimental investigation on the behaviour of small-diameter piles, commonly referred to as micropiles. This particular type of deep foundation is frequently used in many barely accessible Italian mountainous areas, often characterised by complex ground profiles composed of mixtures of coarse soils with some fine matrix elements including cobbles and large-diameter boulders. In such ground conditions, the lack of reliable site and laboratory geotechnical investigations providing an accurate soil mechanical description and conservative approaches for micropile design often lead to significant underestimation of the vertical ultimate load. In order to improve micropile design in such geological contexts, a new field trial investigation involving tension and compression load tests on micropiles up to failure was set up in a selected test site located in the Italian alpine region. From interpretation of the load tests carried out so far, the reliability of commonly used calculation methods for estimating bearing capacity is discussed. As a result, a new approach for a more suitable calculation of the mobilised shaft and base resistance of micropiles bored in highly coarse soils is tentatively propos

Intrapancreatic accessory spleen false positive to 68Ga-Dotatoc: case report and literature review

Background: Intrapancreatic accessory spleen (IPAS) is an uncommon finding of pancreatic mass. Differential diagnosis with pancreatic tumor, especially with non-functional neuroendocrine tumor (NF-NET), may be very hard and sometimes it entails unnecessary surgery. A combination of CT scan, MRI, and nuclear medicine can confirm the diagnosis of IPAS. 68-Ga-Dotatoc PET/CT is the gold standard in NET diagnosis and it can allow to distinguish between IPAS and NET. Case presentation: A 69-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for an incidental nodule in the tail of the pancreas with focal uptake of 68-Ga-dotatate at PET/CT. NET was suspected and open distal splenopancreatectomy was performed. Pathologic examination revealed an IPAS. Conclusion: This is the second IPAS case in which a positive 68Ga-Dotatoc uptake led to a false diagnosis of pancreatic NET. Here is a proposal of a literature review

Diagrammatic scale for assessment of Alternaria Brown Spot of citrus

Com o objetivo de padronizar as avaliações da severidade da Mancha Marrom de Alternaria, foi desenvolvida uma escala diagramática considerando a distribuição, a forma, a freqüência das lesões e os níveis mínimo e máximo de severidade encontrados em campo. Dois tipos de lesões comuns em campo foram representados na escala, pequenas de formato circular ou irregular (0,1; 1; 2,5; 5; 11 e 25 % da área do fruto lesionada) e grandes, nesse caso sempre circulares (1; 2,5; 5; 10 e 17 % da área do fruto lesionada). A validação da escala foi feita em duas etapas: na primeira, quatro avaliadores estimaram a severidade de 79 fotos de frutos sintomáticos, sem o uso da escala, e na segunda, os avaliadores estimaram a severidade dos mesmos frutos com o uso da escala. Quando a escala não foi utilizada, o r² estimado para todo o conjunto de dados foi 0,69, o intercepto (a) 1,42 e o coeficiente angular (b) 0,77. Com o uso da escala, esses parâmetros foram de 0,84, 1,59 e 0,84, respectivamente. A escala mostrou-se adequada para avaliações da severidade da Mancha Marrom de Alternaria em frutos cítricos.A diagrammatic scale of Alternaria Brown Spot in citrus was developed in order to standardize disease severity assessments. The scale was built taking into consideration the distribution, shape and frequency of lesions as well as minimum and maximum severity levels found in the field. Two types of symptoms widely observed at field were represented in the diagrammatic scale: small circular or irregular lesions (0.1 1 2.5 5 11 and 25%) and large circular lesions (1 2.5 5 10 and 17%). The validation of the scale was accomplished in two stages. Firstly, four experts estimated the severity of disease in 79 photographs of citrus fruits with symptoms without using the diagrammatic scale. Secondly, the experts estimated the severity of the disease on the same fruits, by using the scale. When the scale was not used, the coefficient of determination (r²) was 0.69, the intercept (a) 1.42 and the angular coefficient (b) 0.77, while by using the scale these parameters were 0.84, 1.59 and 0.84, respectively. The scale was shown to be appropriate for severity assessment of Alternaria Brown Spot on citrus fruits.Fundação de Amparo à pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP

Genograma e ecomapa: desenhando itinerários terapêuticos de família em condição crônica

O presente estudo teve como objetivo discutir a proposição de desenho interativo para as ferramentas de genograma e ecomapa que pudesse representar, ao longo do tempo, o modo como uma família vivencia o adoecimento crônico concomitante em dois de seus membros. Utilizamos a História de Vida Focal como estratégia metodológica para compor os desenhos como parte do Itinerário Terapêutico da família. Estas ferramentas propostas como desenhos interativos foram capazes de sistematizar, sintetizar e conferir visibilidade aos rearranjos familiares e redes para o cuidado tecidas ao longo da experiência de adoecimento. Embora ainda demonstrem limitações quando apresentados de modo impresso, tais desenhos ampliam a capacidade de expressar as diferentes espacialidades e temporalidades dessa experiência, bem como avaliar suportes e recursos existentes para que a família possa cuidar ou buscar o cuidado profissional, possibilitando que possamos pensar novas práticas de atenção em saúde e, nelas, as intervenções de enfermagem

Performance of the Fully Digital FPGA-based Front-End Electronics for the GALILEO Array

In this work we present the architecture and results of a fully digital Front End Electronics (FEE) read out system developed for the GALILEO array. The FEE system, developed in collaboration with the Advanced Gamma Tracking Array (AGATA) collaboration, is composed of three main blocks: preamplifiers, digitizers and preprocessing electronics. The slow control system contains a custom Linux driver, a dynamic library and a server implementing network services. The digital processing of the data from the GALILEO germanium detectors has demonstrated the capability to achieve an energy resolution of 1.53 per mil at an energy of 1.33 MeV.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, preprint version of IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science paper submitted for the 19th IEEE Real Time Conferenc

PCI Express Over Optical Links for Data Acquisition and Control

PCI Express is a new I/O technology for desktop, mobile, server and communications platforms designed to allow increasing levels of computer system performance. The serial nature of its links and the packet based protocols allows an easy geographical decoupling of a peripheral device. We have investigated the possibility of using an optical physical layer for the PCI Express, and we have built a bus adapter which can bridge remote busses (> 100m) to a single host computer without even the need of a specialized driver, given the legacy PCI compatibility of the PCI Express hardware. This adapter has been made tolerant to harsh environmental conditions, like strong magnetic fields or radiation fluxes, as the data acquisition needs of high energy physics experiments often require