Federal University of São Carlos

About: Federal University of São Carlos is a education organization based out in São Carlos, Brazil. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Microstructure. The organization has 16471 authors who have published 34057 publications receiving 456654 citations. The organization is also known as: UFSCar & Federal University of São Carlos.

Validity of physical activity monitors during daily life in patients with COPD.

Abstract: Symptoms during physical activity and physical inactivity are hallmarks of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Our aim was to evaluate the validity and usability of six activity monitors in patients with COPD against the doubly labelled water (DLW) indirect calorimetry method. 80 COPD patients (mean ± sd age 68 ± 6 years and forced expiratory volume in 1 s 57 ± 19% predicted) recruited in four centres each wore simultaneously three or four out of six commercially available monitors validated in chronic conditions for 14 consecutive days. A priori validity criteria were defined. These included the ability to explain total energy expenditure (TEE) variance through multiple regression analysis, using TEE as the dependent variable with total body water (TBW) plus several physical activity monitor outputs as independent variables; and correlation with activity energy expenditure (AEE) measured by DLW. The Actigraph GT3X (Actigraph LLC, Pensacola, FL, USA), and DynaPort MoveMonitor (McRoberts BV, The Hague, the Netherlands) best explained the majority of the TEE variance not explained by TBW (53% and 70%, respectively) and showed the most significant correlations with AEE (r=0.71, p<0.001 and r=0.70, p<0.0001, respectively). The results of this study should guide users in choosing valid activity monitors for research or for clinical use in patients with chronic diseases such as COPD.

Use of granite sawing wastes in the production of ceramic bricks and tiles

Abstract: Granite process industry generates a large amount of wastes, which pollute and damage the environment. This work aims to characterize and evaluate the possibilities of using the granite sawing wastes, generated by the process industries from Paraiba State, Brazil, as alternative ceramic raw materials in the production of ceramic bricks and tiles. Samples of granite sawing wastes were collected from companies located in Paraiba State. Their characterization were carried out with the determination of density, particle size distribution, surface area (BET), chemical composition, and by DTA, TGA, XRD, and SEM. In a second part of the work, tests in ceramic compositions were conducted in order to evaluate the suitability of addition of wastes in ceramic compositions used in the production of ceramic bricks and tiles. The results showed that the granite wastes have physical and mineralogical characteristics that were similar to those of conventional ceramic raw materials. The ceramic bodies produced from reformulated ceramic compositions had technological characteristics in agreement with the Brazilian standardizations for ceramic bricks and tiles.

System-reservoir dynamics of quantum and classical correlations

Abstract: We examine the system-reservoir dynamics of classical and quantum correlations in the decoherence phenomenon within a two-qubit composite system interacting with two independent environments. The most common noise channels (amplitude damping, phase damping, bit flip, bit-phase flip, and phase flip) are analyzed. By analytical and numerical analyses we find that, contrary to what is usually stated in the literature, decoherence may occur without entanglement between the system and the environment. We also show that, in some cases, the bipartite quantum correlation initially present in the system is completely evaporated and not transferred to the environments.