Classification and Friction Angle from CPT in Gneissic Residual Soil of Brazil

The current research presents the results of experiment in situ and laboratory research with the goal of determining the friction angle in residual soil using the CPT (cone penetration test). This experimental research was completed in an area of study, composed of slopes and plateaus, located in the southern region of Brazil, in the Santo Amaro da Imperatriz municipality. An SPT (standard penetration test) and CPT in situ test investigation campaign was conducted and collected from deformed and undeformed samples for physical characterization and triaxial tests. The results made it possible to classify the soils analyzed according to the unified methodology proposed by Robertson that, based on studies provide friction angle values along the hole’s depth, and obtained through the CPT. The friction angle values obtained in the CPT indicated a well-defined trend of high values at the surface, which decrease in the middle of the soil mass and increase again near the healthy rock. The friction angles estimated by the CPT were overestimated when compared to laboratory estimations. This occurrence is explained by the fact that the measured resistance of the field tests is embedded in the cementation and suction plots.

Comparison of Experimental Methods to Assess the Competitive Ability of Weed Species

Competition between crops and weeds interfere on growth and development with harm to one or both, in different ways. To quantify these differences in competition, additive and replacement series study methods are most often used, each with different characteristics and goals. Therefore, we aimed with this work to study inter-specific competition between plants of soybean and corn against the weeds Bidens pilosa (beggartick) and Digitaria insularis (sourgrass), by two experimental methods of study: additive and replacement series (substitutive) experiments. Initial tests were performed prior to the installation of replacement series experiments to describe the intra-specific competition features for all species. For additive experiments these are unnecessary. To compare the methods of study, there were two sets of trials (an additive and a substitutive) installed under greenhouse, during the growing season 2013/14. Variables analyzed were leaf area and dry weight of shoots of crops and weeds, at 50 days after emergence. The results were analyzed according to the methods used, these being compared. It was found that the additive method supplied results most prone to be applied in the field, while the replacement series (substitutive) method was more appropriate for studies that aimed to provide detailed scientific information regarding the proportions of plants and coefficients describing the behavior of the species community.

Allelopathic Potential of Wheat on Sourgrass Resistant to Glyphosate

We aimed with this study to assay the allelopathic potential of wheat genotypes in inhibiting germination and initial growth of sourgrass (Digitaria insularis) resistant to the herbicide glyphosate. Two experiments were installed under greenhouse conditions: the first one aimed to assay the potential of wheat genotypes in inhibiting emergence and initial growth of two test plants, and the second aimed to evaluate the potential of those wheat genotypes which performed better at the first experiment, inhibiting the emergence and initial growth of sourgrass biotypes resistant to the herbicide glyphosate. Five doses of aqueous cool-extracted extract from 32 wheat genotypes were applied to tomato and cucumber (Experiment 1) aiming to identify the ones with higher inhibitory effect. The five most inhibitory wheat genotypes were selected for Experiment 2, where the same doses of extract were applied on sourgrass. For both experiments, shoot fresh and dry mass, as well as water content, were assessed. Sourgrass germination is affected by wheat extracts, but initial seedling growth seems not to be affected;wheat genotypes differ in terms of their allelopathic potential in inhibiting sourgrass germination;wheat presents little inhibitory effect on sourgrass.

Using a Health Level 7 Interoperability Bus to Support Legacy Systems in the Health Domain

In order to reduce the effort in the integration and actualization of heterogeneous healthcare legacy systems that should share a common database, we propose the creation of an interoperability bus using the HL7 standard—the HL7Middleware. This interoperability bus is an intermediate layer responsible for the communication between a database, health information systems and medical equipment, called HL7Server. Connected systems use the HL7 messaging semantics to store and retrieve data from the database. We validate our approach with respect to two different criteria: performance and integration costs. Benchmark tests were executed with and without the use of HL7Middleware and with different network bandwidths. These results demonstrated that the performance of the interoperability bus is higher when compared to traditional database access for larger volumes of data and when the bandwidth of the user is considerably lower than the bandwidth of the connection between HL7Server and database. The overall development and deployment cost was considered low and the reusability degree of wrapper code was considered high, thus suggesting a progressive reduction of the integration costs of additional services and subsystems of an organization.