Non-destructive evaluation technique of the foods including starches has been developed based on photoluminescence from starches in the foods. The visible PL with broad peak at wavelength of λ = 462 nm are observed from various foods including starches, such as polished rice, flour and corn starch, under illumination of ultra-violet (UV) light at λ = 365 nm. Peak intensity is found to vary with the source and the breed of the specimens. PL images from starches also reveal the uniformity of the food products. Two-dimensional images of PL, which revealed the uniformity of foods under UV irradiation, are potentially useful for the evaluation and the quality control of the foods and starchy products.

Aiming to support the national metrology on ultrasound, Inmetro, the Brazilian National Institute of Metrology (NMI), has been putting effort on its Laboratory of Ultrasound (Labus). In a first approach, Labus is able to offer traceability in basically four general areas: Ultrasonic (US) Transducer Calibration, US Power Measurement, US Field Mapping, and Reference Materials Certification for US applications. The frequency range Labus firstly established its calibration and testing methods is from 0.5 MHz to 20 MHz, being the limits dependent on the particular application considered. So far, Labus most important facilities consist in two water tanks, three manuals and one complete remote-controlled micro-positioning systems, three equipments sets to generate and acquire US signals (arbitrary waveform generators and scopes-like instruments), a set of transducers and primary standards in Power Measurement (a stable US power source) and Hydrophone Calibration (two membrane hydrophones). For while, Labus is traced to others NMI, but the goal is to implement absolute calibration methods in two years time. Within this paper, Labus will be presented in details, particularly outlining its state of art in Transducer Calibration, Power Measurement, and Reference Materials Certification. Join ventures with industry and private and universities laboratories will be outlined, either.

In this paper we present an improved method for the acquisition, filtering, compression and clinical parameter identification of the ECG. The method involves the use of an improved instrumentation setup with high resolution and sample rate, as well as DSP monitored automatic gain and offset control (AGOC) which maximizes the range of the signal. It also involves the fitting of the signal with a nonlinear model consisting of six generalized Gaussians (with skew). The method further includes the use of sinefitting techniques to selectively remove electromagnetic interference such as the power-line (50 Hz or 60 Hz component). We will further describe the experimental setup developed, which is a DSP based portable 3-lead device, and show some experimental and characterization results.

The growth of titanium oxide layer on titanium surface by the micro-arc oxidation technique was investigated. Ca(CH₃COO)₂ (0.3M), Na₂CO₃ (0.6M) and Na₂HPO₄ (0.1M) solutions were employed as electrolytes. SEM and EDS microanalysis were used for morphology, composition characterization and low-angle X-ray diffraction to describe titanium oxide crystallographic orientation. TiO₂ films formed by using 0.3M Ca(CH₃COO)₂ and 0.1M Na₂HPO₄ solutions showed a porous, homogeneous surface structure, with presence of phosphorous and after an hydrothermical treatment using a Ca(OH)₂ suspension during 24h at 60ºC was observed phosphorous and calcium.

Two methods of radiological survey in a medical X ray room are compared. The first method is just the usual one, as done today in Brazil. It is based on the election of a high voltage (HV) value, by legal rule the highest used in the clinic, taken as a standard. This highest HV value is supposed to be constant and representative of all others values, which are simply ignored. This work shows that the results of this approach move away a bit from the actual radiation doses, overestimating the values. A second method is proposed and compared with the first one. It takes the various values of HV into account. One should only assume a quadratic relationship between the dose measurements and HV and change the way of workload data acquirement. This second method presents a modified way to calculate the ambient equivalent dose [H*(10)]. It is shown that the spread of values present by the 2nd method is smaller than that of the current one, although in the 2nd method the values are still overestimated, however not too much. Putting both methods side by side, as a conclusion, the second one shows to be better than the first, as it adheres more to the reality.