The use of biodegradable polymers has grown exponentially due to their lower environmental impact when compared to conventional polymers. In this sense, biocomposites are an alternative due to their promising properties, maintaining biodegradability. For this purpose, in the present study, a biodegradable biocomposite of PBAT (poly [butylene adipate co‐terephthalate]) and PLA (polylactide) blend containing cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) were obtained, using polyethylene grafted with maleic anhydride (PE‐g‐MA) as a coupling agent. Seven formulations were produced by extrusion and had their structure, morphology, thermal, and rheological properties analyzed. The results showed a significant improvement of adhesion among the components using PE‐g‐MA as a coupling agent. Moreover, CNC and PE‐g‐MA increased the PLA crystallinity degree and reduced the complex viscosity. These results are unprecedented in the literature using these compositions and extrusion processing conditions. Therefore, these new insights provide a vast horizon for the use of biodegradable mixtures using PBAT/PLA and CNC.

No abstract

No abstract

The use of the Newcomb-Benford Law in assessing the quality of health and / orepidemiological information systems can allow relevant decisions to be made to improve these systems. In this context, this research aimed to carry out an assessment of the conformity of theinformation regarding the number of cases of contamination and deaths by COVID-19 in Brazil according to the Newcomb-Benford Law, from the moment of the occurrence of the first case of the disease and from the first death by COVID-19 in the country until the month of September 2020. With the aid of descriptive statistics and the use of metrics related to the Z test and themean absolute deviation it was possible to observe that, both from a national and longitudinal perspective as for the transversal-state perspective, the quantitative data referring to the cases of contamination by the coronavirus and the deaths that occurred as a result of COVID-19 did not present the expected behavior according to the Newcomb-Benford Law. Due to the lack of conformity in relation to the Newcomb-Benford Law, it is suspected that some level of conformity specific to this type of data has occurred, in the Brazilian context, since there are already studies that suggest the existence of proper levels of conformity for certain types of data.