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HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

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This work evaluated dry and rainy conditions in the subregions of the São Francisco River Basin (BHSF) using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Markov chains. Each subregion of the BHSF has specific physical and climatic characteristics. The data was obtained from the National Water Agency (ANA), collected by four pluviometric stations (representative of each subregion), covering 46 years of data, from 1970 to 2015. The SPI was calculated for the time scales of six and twelve months and transition probabilities were obtained using the Markov chain. Transition matrices showed that, at both scales, if the climate conditions were severe drought or rainy, switching to another class would be unlikely in the short term.  Correlating this information with the probabilities of the stationary distribution, it was possible to find the regions that are most likely to be under rainy or dry weather in the future. The recurrence times calculated for the stations that belong to the semi-arid region were smaller when compared to the value of the return period of the representative station of Upper São Francisco that has higher levels of precipitation, confirming the predisposition of the semi-arid region to present greater chances of future periods of drought.

Acute myocardial infarction, which occurs because of the occlusion of one or more coronary arteries, is the most common form of cardiovascular disease. Balloon angioplasty is often used to treat coronary artery occlusion and is less invasive than surgery involving revascularisation of the myocardium, thus promising a better quality of life for patients. Unfortunately, the rate of re-stenosis after balloon angioplasty is high (approximately 30-50% within the first year after treatment). Intravascular radiation therapy has been used with several types of radiation source, and researchers have observed some success in decreasing the rate of re-stenosis. In this paper theoretical radiation dose distributions for monoenergetic electrons (with discrete energies) and photons are calculated for blood vessels of diameter 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5 mm with balloon and wire sources using the radiation transport code MCNP4B. Stent sources employing 32P are also simulated. Advantages and disadvantages of the radionuclides and source geometries are discussed, as well as issues regarding possible benefits to the patients.