Despite evidence of West Nile virus (WNV) activity in Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina, this virus has not been reported in most South American countries. In February 2009, we commenced an investigation for WNV in mosquitoes, horses and caimans from the Pantanal, Central-West Brazil. The sera of 168 horses and 30 caimans were initially tested using a flaviviruses-specific epitope-blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (blocking ELISA) for the detection of flavivirus-reactive antibodies. The seropositive samples were further tested using a plaque-reduction neutralisation test (PRNT90) for WNV and its most closely-related flaviviruses that circulate in Brazil to confirm the detection of specific virus-neutralising antibodies. Of the 93 (55.4%) blocking ELISA-seropositive horse serum samples, five (3%) were seropositive for WNV, nine (5.4%) were seropositive for St. Louis encephalitis virus, 18 (10.7%) were seropositive for Ilheus virus, three (1.8%) were seropositive for Cacipacore virus and none were seropositive for Rocio virus using PRNT90, with a criteria of > four-fold antibody titre difference. All caimans were negative for flaviviruses-specific antibodies using the blocking ELISA. No virus genome was detected from caiman blood or mosquito samples. The present study is the first report of confirmed serological evidence of WNV activity in Brazil.

Este trabalho objetivou estudar o efeito da vinhaça na biodegradação em solo da borra oleosa proveniente da refinaria de petróleo Replan-Petrobras. Foi utilizado o método respirométrico de Bartha para verificar a eficiência de tratamentos constituídos de solo, borra oleosa nas concentrações 7 e 14 % (m/m) e ajuste da umidade do solo com e sem vinhaça (0,11 mL/g solo seco) durante 121 dias. Embora a adição da vinhaça tenha proporcionado um aumento da população microbiana nos tratamentos, esta não se mostrou adequada para aumentar a eficiência de biodegradação da borra oleosa em solo, uma vez que não houve diferença entre o CO2 produzido nos tratamentos com ou sem vinhaça após o consumo total da vinhaça. Assim, o uso da vinhaça como agente estimulante em processos de biodegradação mostrou-se ineficiente nas condições estudadas.

This work aimed to study the effect of vinasse on the biodegradation in soil of oily sludge from the Replan-Petrobras oil refinery. The Bartha respirometric method was used to verify the efficiency of the treatments with soil, oily sludge (7 and 14% m/m) and soil moisture adjustment with or without vinasse (0.11 mL/g dry soil) for 121 days. Although an increase in the soil microbial population was obtained with the vinasse, it demonstrated not to be adequate to enhance the biodegradation efficiency of the oily sludge in soil, since there was no difference between the CO2 produced from treatments with or without vinasse after the complete consumption of the vinasse. Thus, the use of vinasse as an amendment to biodegradation processes showed not to be efficient under the studied conditions.

Este trabalho apresenta um modelo Fluidodinâmico Computacional tridimensional para simular a dispersão de substâncias solúveis em rios. O modelo pode predizer o impacto causado pela ocorrência de múltiplos pontos de emissão no trecho estudado. O código numérico para o modelo matemático foi desenvolvido em linguagem Fortran. Os resultados mostram que a metodologia proposta é uma boa ferramenta para a avaliação do impacto ambiental causado pela emissão de efluentes em rios. O software é bastante rápido, especialmente quando comparado com outros pacotes de CFD disponíveis comercialmente. Foram feitas comparações entre os resultados numéricos e dados experimentais coletados no rio Atibaia. Os resultados numéricos apresentaram uma boa concordância com os dados coletados experimentalmente.

This work presents a three-dimensional model for the dispersion of effluents in rivers using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques. There are several models in the literature, some of which even analyze complex flows. They are however restricted to small river sections. The main contribution of this work is that it proposes a new software capable of predicting the dispersion of effluents in very large open channels. The model is very fast, an unusual feature of CFD models. Due to this, it is possible to predict the dispersion of substances in long sections of rivers with some kilometers in extension. Moreover, multiple emissions can be analyzed by the model, allowing its use as a predictive tool to analyze and guide management decisions on future industrial installations near rivers. Results for the dispersion of an inert emission in a river near Campinas (Brazil) were used to validate the model.