Accurate forest parameters are essential for forest inventory. Traditionally, parameters such as diameter at breast height (DBH) and total height are measured in the field by level gauges and ...hypsometers. However, field inventories are usually based on sample plots, which, despite providing valuable and necessary information, are laborious, expensive, and spatially limited. Most of the work developed for remote measurement of DBH has used terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), which has high density point clouds, being an advantage for the accurate forest inventory. However, TLS still has a spatial limitation to application because it needs to be manually carried to reach the area of interest, requires sometimes challenging field access, and often requires a field team. UAV-borne (unmanned aerial vehicle) lidar has great potential to measure DBH as it provides much higher density point cloud data as compared to aircraft-borne systems. Here, we explore the potential of a UAV-lidar system (GatorEye) to measure individual-tree DBH and total height using an automatic approach in an integrated crop-livestock-forest system with seminal forest plantations of Eucalyptus benthamii. A total of 63 trees were georeferenced and had their DBH and total height measured in the field. In the high-density (>1400 points per meter squared) UAV-lidar point cloud, we applied algorithms (usually used for TLS) for individual tree detection and direct measurement of tree height and DBH. The correlation coefficients (r) between the field-observed and UAV lidar-derived measurements were 0.77 and 0.91 for DBH and total tree height, respectively. The corresponding root mean square errors (RMSE) were 11.3% and 7.9%, respectively. UAV-lidar systems have the potential for measuring relatively broad-scale (thousands of hectares) forest plantations, reducing field effort, and providing an important tool to aid decision making for efficient forest management. We recommend that this potential be explored in other tree plantations and forest environments.
•The new biofortified cowpea cultivars have a high Fe and Zn content compared to common beans.•Biofortified cowpea seeds also provide more Fe and Zn for absorption in the gastrointestinal tract.•The ...interaction Fe–Zn was synergistic in bean cultivars.•50 g of biofortified Aracê cowpea contributes 27% and 48% of the Fe and Zn DRI for 1–3-year-old children.
This work presents new findings on the nutritional quality of recently introduced biofortified and non-biofortified cowpea cultivars as well as some common beans. ICP-MS was used for the measurements. Biofortified cowpea cultivars showed high levels of Fe and Zn, greater than 60 and 40 mg kg−1 dry weight, respectively. The in vitro digestion protocol enabled simultaneous evaluation of bioaccessibility and bioavailability. Fe levels in cowpea cultivars were ca. 2.5-fold higher than in common beans. Cowpea seeds also had higher Zn levels, reaching 50.1% bioaccessibility and 44.2% bioavailability. Cooking improved the availability of micronutrients in bean seeds. The cooked biofortified Aracê cowpea showed a high Zn bioavailability above 60%. Consumption of 50 g of Aracê would contribute 27% and 48% of the Fe and Zn DRI for 1–3-year-old children. The new cowpea cultivars biofortified are a potential vehicle for improving the Fe and Zn status in groups in which the micronutrient deficiency is prevalent.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is characterized by the intrahepatic deposition of fat. It is the most prevalent liver disease in the world, affecting obese children and adolescents. Its ...pathophysiology is not fully understood, although it is often related to insulin resistance. This in turn would be due to an inflammatory condition common to obesity. Thus, the objective of this study was to describe the behavior of proinflammatory cytokines in obese children and adolescents, with and without non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
A fasting venous blood sample was obtained of consecutive 90 obese individuals aged 8-18 years, of both sexes, for laboratory determinations of glycaemia, basal insulin and homeostasis model assessment insulin-resistance index, and the inflammatory markers tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukins 2 and 6 (IL-2 and IL-6), interferon-gamma and high sensitive C-reactive protein. The clinical evaluation included weight, height and waist circumference. We used the body mass index/age indicator for the severity of overweight assessment. The degrees of steatosis were determined by ultrasonography. Quantitative and qualitative variables were respectively expressed by measures of central tendency/dispersion and simple/relative frequency, using Statistical Program for Social Sciences, version 20.0. A p-value < 0.05 was considered as significant.
A total of 90 individuals were studied, with a mean age of 11.98 (2.72) years, of which 48 (53%) were male. The body mass index (BMI) for age (BMI/i) and sex (z-score) classified 38 (42.2%) participants as obese and 52 (57.7%) as severe obese; Hepatic steatosis was identified in 56 (62.2%) participants and approximately 90% of them presented grade I steatosis. The inflammatory markers TNF-α, and C-reactive protein were increased in the studied sample and correlated in a positive and statistically significant way with the index of body mass/age and sex.
Hepatic steatosis was prevalent in the group of children and adolescents studied, but was not related to obesity degrees.
Terpenes are one of the most abundant classes of secondary metabolites produced by plants and can be divided based on the number of isoprene units (C5) in monoterpenes (2 units—C10), sesquiterpenes ...(3 units—C15), diterpenes (4 units—C20), triterpenes (6 units—C30), etc. Chemically, triterpenes are classified based on their structural skeleton including lanostanes, euphanes, cycloartanes, ursanes, oleananes, lupanes, tirucallanes, cucurbitanes, dammaranes, baccharanes, friedelanes, hopanes, serratanes etc. Additionally, glycosylated (saponins) or highly oxidated/degraded (limonoids) triterpenes could be found in nature. The antiinflammatory effect and action as immunomodulators of these secondary metabolites have been demonstrated in different studies. This review reports an overview of articles published in the last 15 years (from 2006 to 2021 using PubMed and SciFinder database) describing the antiinflammatory effects of different triterpenes with their presumed mechanism of action, suggesting that triterpenes could be appointed as natural products with future pharmaceutical applicability.
Hepatitis A (HA) is an acute human infectious disease caused by a positive single-stranded RNA virus (HAV). It is mainly acquired through the fecal-oral route and is primarily spread by contact ...between people and exposure to contaminated water and food. Recently, large outbreaks of HA have been reported by low and moderate endemicity countries, emphasizing its importance in public health and the need for rapid and large-scale diagnostic tests to support public health decisions on HA. This work proposes a new tool for HAV diagnosis based on the association of surface plasmonic resonance with major capsid protein VP1 (SPR-HAVP1 assay), detecting IgM antibodies for HAV in human serum samples. Structural analyses of VP1 B-lymphocyte epitopes showed continuous and discontinuous epitopes. The discontinuous epitopes were identified in the N-terminal region of the VP1 protein. Both epitope types in the VP1 protein were shown by the reactivity of VP1 in native and denaturing conditions to IgM anti-HAV, which was favorable to tests of VP1 in the SPR assays. SPR-HAVP1 assays showed good performance in the detection of IgM polyclonal antibody anti-HAV. These assays were performed using a COOH5 sensor chip functionalized with VP1 protein. The sensorgram record showed a significant difference between positive and negative serum samples, which was confirmed by analysis of variation of initial and final dissociation values through time (ΔRUd/t). The data gathered here are unequivocal evidence that the SPR-HAVP1 strategy can be applied to detect IgM antibodies in human serum positive to the HAV. This is a new tool to be explored to diagnose human HAV infections.
This study aimed to evaluate the energy yield and wood characteristics of Eucalyptus urophylla S.T.Blake clones with different mean annual increment (MAI) of wood volume. The clones presented MAIs of ...39.2, 54.1, and 70.0 m
3
·ha
−1
·year
−1
in the field experiment at 6 years after planting when the trees were cut down to evaluate the wood basic density and higher heating values. The energy density, dry mass, and energy yield were estimated. The MAI of E. urophylla clones influenced the wood basic density, dry mass, and energy yield, but did not influence the higher heating value and energy density. Clone 3 had the highest MAI as well as higher energy yield and dry mass, but lower wood basic density. The difference between the most and the least productive clones was 242 648 MJ·ha
−1
·year
−1
. The results reinforce the importance of evaluating the wood quantity production (MAI) when selecting E. urophylla clones for energy purposes.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BF, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper presents the ANN (Artificial Neural Networks) approach to obtaining complete P-V curves of electrical power systems subjected to contingency. Two networks were presented: the MLP ...(multilayer perceptron) and the RBF (radial basis function) networks. The differential of our methodology consisted in the speed of obtaining all the P-V curves of the system. The great advantage of using ANN models is that they can capture the nonlinear characteristics of the studied system to avoid iterative procedures. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed methodology have been investigated on IEEE test systems (14 buses) and compared with the continuation power flow, which obtains the post-contingency loading margin starting from the base case solution. From the results, the ANN performed well, with a mean squared error (MSE) in training below the specified value. The network was able to estimate 98.4% of the voltage magnitude values within the established range, with residues around 10−4 and a percentage of success between the desired and obtained output of approximately 98%, with better result for the RBF (radial basis function) network compared to MLP (multilayer perceptron).
Snakebites affect millions of people worldwide. The majority of research and management about snakebites focus on venom and antivenom, with less attention given to snake ecology. The fundamental ...factor in snakebites is the snakes' defensive biting behavior. Herein we examine the effects of environmental variables (temperature, time of day, and human stimulus) and biological variables (sex and body size) on the biting behavior of a medically significant pit viper species in Brazil, Bothrops jararaca (Viperidae), and associate it with the epidemiology of snakebites. Through experimental simulations of encounters between humans and snakes, we obtained behavioral models applicable to epidemiological situations in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. We found a significant overlap between behavioral, morphological, environmental, and epidemiological data. Variables that increase snakebites in epidemiological data also enhance the tendency of snakes to bite defensively, resulting in snakebites. We propose that snakebite incidents are influenced by environmental and morphological factors, affecting the behavior of snakes and the proportion of incidents. Thus, investigating behavior of snakes related to snakebite incidents is a valuable tool for a better understanding of the epidemiology of these events, helping the prediction and, thus, prevention of snakebites.
The Insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF-2) has been recently proven to alleviate depressive-like behaviors in both rats and mice models. However, its potential role as a peripheral biomarker has not ...been evaluated in depression. To do this, we measured plasma IGF-2 and other members of the IGF family such as Binding Proteins (IGFBP-1, IGFBP-3, IGFBP-5 and IGFBP-7) in a depressed group of patients (n = 51) and in a healthy control group (n = 48). In some of these patients (n = 15), we measured these proteins after a period (19 ± 6 days) of treatment with antidepressants. The Hamilton Depressive Rating Scale (HDRS) and the Self-Assessment Anhedonia Scale (SAAS) were used to measure depression severity and anhedonia, respectively. The general cognition state was assessed by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) test and memory with the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT). The levels of both IGF-2 and IGFBP-7 were found to be significantly increased in the depressed group; however, only IGF-2 remained significantly elevated after correction by age and sex. On the other hand, the levels of IGF-2, IGFBP-3 and IGFBP-5 were significantly decreased after treatment, whereas only IGFBP-7 was significantly increased. Therefore, peripheral changes in the IGF family and their response to antidepressants might represent alterations at the brain level in depression.
The traditional aviary decontamination process involves farmers applying pesticides to the aviary's ground. These agricultural defenses are easily dispersed in the air, making the farmers susceptible ...to chronic diseases related to recurrent exposure. Industry 5.0 raises new pillars of research and innovation in transitioning to more sustainable, human-centric, and resilient companies. Based on these concepts, this paper presents a new aviary decontamination process that uses IoT and a robotic platform coupled with ozonizer (O
) and ultraviolet light (UVL). These clean technologies can successfully decontaminate poultry farms against pathogenic microorganisms, insects, and mites. Also, they can degrade toxic compounds used to control living organisms. This new decontamination process uses physicochemical information from the poultry litter through sensors installed in the environment, which allows accurate and safe disinfection. Different experimental tests were conducted to construct the system. First, tests related to measuring soil moisture, temperature, and pH were carried out, establishing the range of use and the confidence interval of the measurements. The robot's navigation uses a back-and-forth motion that parallels the aviary's longest side because it reduces the number of turns, reducing energy consumption. This task becomes more accessible because of the aviaries' standardized geometry. Furthermore, the prototype was tested in a real aviary to confirm the innovation, safety, and effectiveness of the proposal. Tests have shown that the UV + ozone combination is sufficient to disinfect this environment.
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