Heroin is abused around the world and is frequently reported as the cause of death in overdose cases. Analysis of morphine in hair has been used in the past in forensic toxicology to study the addiction history of heroin addicts. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of the nail as an analytical specimen in the identification and quantification of morphine in fingernail clippings of known heroin users. Fingernail clippings were obtained from 26 consenting patients of the Glasgow Drug Problem Service. At the time of sampling, the participants provided answers to a questionnaire regarding their drug use patterns. Samples were decontaminated by sonication in SDS, deionized water and methanol, and the methanolic washes were screened for analyte presence. The washed nail clippings were then hydrolyzed and extracted. RIA was used for the screening and HPLC for the confirmation of morphine. Positive RIA results were obtained with nail clippings from 25 of the 26 heroin users. The levels ranged from 0.06 to 4.69 ng/mg with a mean morphine concentration of 1.67 ng/mg. HPLC results were positive for 22 of the 26 nail samples. The mean morphine level by HPLC was 2.11 ng/mg with a range from 0.14 to 6.90 ng/mg. Based on these results, we suggest that nails have the potential of becoming a powerful alternative to hair for the detection of past heroin use in forensic cases.

The initial strain distribution (ISD) method is applied to the evaluation of the residual stress in cladded plates with three different heat treatments. The experimental methods are explained and details for the application of the interpretation procedure developed in Part I are provided. The ISD allowed the complete residual stress field of the plates to be obtained and the effect of the heat treatments in the mitigation of the residual stress peaks to be verified. The obtained results make it possible to predict the residual stress field for any body that can be extracted from the plates by any procedure that does not introduce other sources of initial strain.

1.1 Em primeiro lugar, este trabalho se propos contribuir para a analise economica do arracoamento de frangos de corte. Tres modelos matematicos foram analizados para determinar a combinacao ideal de dois elementos variaveis na combinacao das racoes. Os modelos estudados foram a funcao polinomial "raiz quadrada", a funcao polimonial quadratica e a funcao Cobb-Douglas, todos com duas variaveis independentes. 1.2 O segundo objetivo do presente trabalho foi o de propor um modelo para o calculo da idade otima para abate de frangos. Ao contrario do procedimento usual de maximizar a receita liquida, o criterio aqui seguido foi o de maximizar a rentabilidade do capital. Para tanto, ajustaram-se as equacoes de crescimento segundo os modelos polinomial cubico e de Gompertz e a equacao de consumo de racao segundo o podelo polinomial cubico. As equacoes de receita foram derivadas apenas das equacoes cubicas de crescimento em consequencia de seu bom ajustamento e facilidade de operacao. O produto da soma das equacoes de crescimento com o peso respectivo do pinto pelo preco do grama de frango resulta nas equacoes que estimam receitas provenientes da venda de uma ave no instante t.