This paper presents a study of the national electric power, showing the Brazil consumes electricity in a year and how much you could save if thermoelectric modules were used in some industries and new cars and planes to capture and transformation of residual thermal energy into electrical energy. The conclusion appears really attractive economically, given the fact that many processes generate ...

A novel direct-laser writing fabrication process for micro-axicons is demonstrated. A fiber-axicon-generated Bessel beam was utilized to write on UV-curable optical epoxy to form new axicons and axicon arrays, and geometrical parameters of the replicated epoxy axicons were analyzed in terms of both apex angle and proximity of the writing axicons. The shape of the fabricated axicons was demonstr...

Efforts in experimental therapeutics of atherosclerosis are mostly focused on identifying candidate targets that can be exploited in developing new strategies to reduce plaque progression, induce its regression and/or improve stability of advanced lesions. Plaque macrophages are central players in all these processes, and consequently a significant amount of research is devoted to understanding...

This paper not only addresses how linkages, direct and facilitating linkages, can benefit microfinance institutions – and particularly in jurisdictions where the Savings Group Outreach involvement is particularly low, but also illustrates ways and means whereby group lending and other more recent innovative methods used by micro lenders to secure repayments, could increase the desired effects, ...

The rapid manufacture of complex three-dimensional micro-scale components has eluded researchers for decades. Several additive manufacturing options have been limited by either speed or the ability to fabricate true three-dimensional structures. Projection micro-stereolithography (PμSL) is a low cost, high throughput additive fabrication technique capable of generating three-dimensional microst...

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) are small RNA molecules, which function as important regulators of gene expression. We found that RNA preparation methods commonly utilized for miRNA expression studies yield highly unstable miRNAs. We studied the stability of four miRNAs belonging to different miRNAs families. A significant degradation of these molecules may be observed already three days after RNA isolatio...

We have extended the use of shadow Moiré technique to be implemented in simple curved surfaces by using a flexible grating. Dynamic visual inspection of surface micro-damages is significantly favored by the use of well adapted pliable gratings compared to the use of flat reference gratings. The experimental set-up consists of a plastic foil with a printed Ronchi grating stretched between three ...

Aerobic biodegradation behavior of nonylphenol propoxylates was investigated using dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction as a simple and fast technique for sample preparation. The developed method proved to be efficient for the isolation and concentration of nonylphenol propoxylates before their quantification with the use of high performance liquid chromatography. The primary biodegradation...

Bisphenol A (BPA) in the presence of phenol is determined using a method based on first-derivative spectrofluorimetry. The proposed method involves a micro liquid-liquid extraction of sodium chloride saturated water samples with diethyl ether followed by direct fluorimetric analysis of extracts. The excitation spectra of both compounds in diethyl ether are recorded between 200 and 290 nm, with ...