The remarkable phytogeographic characteristics of the Brazilian savanna (Cerrado) resulted in a vegetation domain composed of plants with high structural and functional diversity to tolerate climate ...extremes. Here we used a key Cerrado species (Dipteryx alata) to evaluate if species of this domain present a mechanism of stress memory, responding more quickly and efficiently when exposed to recurrent drought episodes. The exposure of D. alata seedlings to drought resulted in several changes, mainly in physiological and biochemical traits, and these changes differed substantially when the water deficit was imposed as an isolated event or when the plants were subjected to drought cycles, suggesting the existence of a drought memory mechanism. Plants submitted to recurrent drought events were able to maintain essential processes for plant survival when compared to those submitted to drought for the first time. This differential acclimation to drought was the result of orchestrated changes in several metabolic pathways, involving differential carbon allocation for defense responses and the reprogramming and coordination of primary, secondary and antioxidant metabolism. The stress memory in D. alata is probably linked the evolutionary history of the species and reflects the environment in which it evolved.
•Coffee is a prominent commodity extensively used worldwide as beverage.•Coffee green seed residue from fixed oil extraction has not been studied yet.•The antioxidant action and the chemical profile ...of this residue were assessed.•This residue can be used as raw material to obtain antioxidant compounds.•This study values green chemistry principles and the reuse of by-products.
Oil extraction from green coffee seeds generates residual mass that is discarded by agribusiness and has not been previously studied. Bioactive secondary metabolites in coffee include antioxidant phenolic compounds, such as chlorogenic acids. Coffee seeds also contain caffeine, a pharmaceutically important methylxanthine. Here, we report the chemical profile, antioxidant activity, and cytotoxicity of hydroethanolic extracts of green Coffea arabica L. seed residue. The extracts of the green seeds and the residue have similar chemical profiles, containing the phenolic compounds chlorogenic acid and caffeine. Five monoacyl and three diacyl esters of trans-cinnamic acids and quinic acid were identified by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization-quadruple time of flight mass spectrometry. The residue extract showed antioxidant potential in DPPH, ABTS, and pyranine assays and low cytotoxicity. Thus, coffee oil residue has great potential for use as a raw material in dietary supplements, cosmetic and pharmaceutical products, or as a source of bioactive compounds.
Patients with ischemic heart failure (iHF) have a high risk of neurological complications such as cognitive impairment and stroke. We hypothesized that iHF patients have a higher incidence of ...impaired dynamic cerebral autoregulation (dCA). Adult patients with iHF and healthy volunteers were included. Cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV, transcranial Doppler, middle cerebral artery), end-tidal CO
(capnography), and arterial blood pressure (Finometer) were continuously recorded supine for 5 min at rest. Autoregulation index (ARI) was estimated from the CBFV step response derived by transfer function analysis using standard template curves. Fifty-two iHF patients and 54 age-, gender-, and BP-matched healthy volunteers were studied. Echocardiogram ejection fraction was 40 (20-45) % in iHF group. iHF patients compared with control subjects had reduced end-tidal CO
(34.1 ± 3.7 vs. 38.3 ± 4.0 mmHg, P < 0.001) and lower ARI values (5.1 ± 1.6 vs. 5.9 ± 1.0, P = 0.012). ARI <4, suggestive of impaired CA, was more common in iHF patients (28.8 vs. 7.4%, P = 0.004). These results confirm that iHF patients are more likely to have impaired dCA compared with age-matched controls. The relationship between impaired dCA and neurological complications in iHF patients deserves further investigation.
Aim
To evaluate the efficacy of selective and nonselective inhibitors of cyclooxygenase‐2 enzymes in the treatment of experimental apical periodontitis induced by bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) ...in vivo in a mouse model.
Methodology
Thirty‐six C57BL/6 mice were used. After access cavity preparation, a solution containing E. coli LPS (1.0 µg µL−1) was inoculated into the root canals of the mandibular and maxillary right first molars (n = 72) After 30 days, apical periodontitis was established and the animals were systemically treated with celecoxib, a selective COX‐2 inhibitor (15 mg kg−1), or indomethacin, a nonselective COX‐2 inhibitor (5 mg kg−1), for 7 and 14 days. Blocks containing teeth and bone were removed for histopathological and histometric analyses (haematoxylin and eosin), evaluation of osteoclasts numbers (tartrate‐resistant acid phosphatase enzyme – TRAP) and immunohistochemistry for RANK, RANKL and OPG. Gene expression was performed using reverse transcription and real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) for RANK, RANKL, OPG, TRAP, MMP‐9, cathepsin K and calcitonin receptor. Histopathological, histometric, TRAP, immunohistochemistry and qRT‐PCR data were evaluated using Kruskal–Wallis followed by Dunn’s test (α = 0.05).
Results
Systemic administration of celecoxib for 7 and 14 days prevented periapical bone resorption (P < 0.0001), differently from indomethacin that exacerbated bone resorption at 7 days (P < 0.0001) or exerted no effect at 14 days (P = 0.8488). Celecoxib treatment reduced osteoclast formation in apical periodontitis, regardless of the period of treatment (P < 0.0001 for 7 days and P = 0.026 for 14 days). Administration of celecoxib or indomethacin differentially modulated the expression of genes involved in bone resorption. At 7 days, celecoxib and indomethacin treatment significantly inhibited expression of mRNA for cathepsin K (P = 0.0005 and P = 0.016, respectively) without changing TRAP, MMP‐9 and calcitonin receptor gene expression. At 14 days, celecoxib significantly inhibited expression of mRNA for MMP‐9 (P < 0.0001) and calcitonin receptor (P = 0.004), whilst indomethacin exerted no effect on MMP‐9 (P = 0.216) and calcitonin receptor (P = 0.971) but significantly augmented cathepsin K gene expression (P = 0.001).
Conclusions
The selective COX‐2 inhibitor celecoxib reduced osteoclastogenic signalling and activity that dampened bone resorption in LPS‐induced apical periodontitis in mice, with greater efficacy than the nonselective inhibitor indomethacin.
Detailed information about lung cancer patients requiring admission to intensive care units (ICUs) is mostly restricted to single-center studies. Our aim was to evaluate the clinical characteristics ...and outcomes of lung cancer patients admitted to ICUs.
Prospective multicenter study in 449 patients with lung cancer (small cell, n = 55; non-small cell, n = 394) admitted to 22 ICUs in six countries in Europe and South America during 2011. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards frailty models were built to identify characteristics associated with 30-day and 6-month mortality.
Most of the patients (71%) had newly diagnosed cancer. Cancer-related complications occurred in 56% of patients; the most common was tumoral airway involvement (26%). Ventilatory support was required in 53% of patients. Overall hospital, 30-day, and 6-month mortality rates were 39%, 41%, and 55%, respectively. After adjustment for type of admission and early treatment-limitation decisions, determinants of mortality were organ dysfunction severity, poor performance status (PS), recurrent/progressive cancer, and cancer-related complications. Mortality rates were far lower in the patient subset with nonrecurrent/progressive cancer and a good PS, even those with sepsis, multiple organ dysfunctions, and need for ventilatory support. Mortality was also lower in high-volume centers. Poor PS predicted failure to receive the initially planned cancer treatment after hospital discharge.
ICU admission was associated with meaningful survival in lung cancer patients with good PS and non-recurrent/progressive disease. Conversely, mortality rates were very high in patients not fit for anticancer treatment and poor PS. In this subgroup, palliative care may be the best option.
Major abdominal oncology surgery is associated with substantial postoperative loss of functional capacity, and exercise may be an effective intervention to improve outcomes. The aim of this study was ...to assess efficacy, feasibility and safety of a supervised postoperative exercise programme.
We performed a single-blind, parallel-arm, randomized trial in patients who underwent major abdominal oncology surgery in a tertiary university hospital. Patients were randomized to an early mobilization postoperative programme based on supervised aerobic exercise, resistance and flexibility training or to standard rehabilitation care. The primary outcome was inability to walk without human assistance at postoperative day 5 or hospital discharge.
A total of 108 patients were enrolled, 54 into the early mobilization programme group and 54 into the standard rehabilitation care group. The incidence of the primary outcome was nine (16.7%) and 21 (38.9%), respectively (P=0.01), with an absolute risk reduction of 22.2% 95% confidence interval (CI) 5.9–38.6 and a number needed to treat of 5 (95% CI 3–17). All patients in the intervention group were able to follow at least partially the exercise programme, although the performance among them was rather heterogeneous. There were no differences between groups regarding clinical outcomes or complications related to the exercises.
An early postoperative mobilization programme based on supervised exercises seems to be safe and feasible and improves functional capacity in patients undergoing major elective abdominal oncology surgery. However, its impact on clinical outcomes is still unclear.
NCT01693172.
We study the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil based on official data available since March 22, 2020. Calculations are done via an adaptive susceptible–infected–removed (SIR) model featuring ...dynamical recuperation and propagation rates. We are able reproduce the number of confirmed cases over time with less than 5% error and also provide with short- and long-term predictions. The model can also be used to account for the epidemic dynamics in other countries with great accuracy.
•SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil based on official data available since March 22, 2020.•Adaptive susceptible–infected–removed (SIR) model can reproduce the number of confirmed cases over time.•It is possible to predict the epidemic progression in the near future.
At the end of 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported pneumonia that started in Wuhan, China, as a global emergency problem. Researchers quickly advanced in research to try to understand ...this COVID-19 and sough solutions for the front-line professionals fighting this fatal disease. One of the tools to aid in the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of this disease is computed tomography (CT). CT images provide valuable information on how this new disease affects the lungs of patients. However, the analysis of these images is not trivial, especially when researchers are searching for quick solutions. Detecting and evaluating this disease can be tiring, time-consuming, and susceptible to errors. Thus, in this study, we aim to automatically segment infections caused by COVID19 and provide quantitative measures of these infections to specialists, thus serving as a support tool. We use a database of real clinical cases from Pedro Ernesto University Hospital of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The method involves five steps: lung segmentation, segmentation and extraction of pulmonary vessels, infection segmentation, infection classification, and infection quantification. For the lung segmentation and infection segmentation tasks, we propose modifications to the traditional U-Net, including batch normalization, leaky ReLU, dropout, and residual block techniques, and name it as Residual U-Net. The proposed method yields an average Dice value of 77.1% and an average specificity of 99.76%. For quantification of infectious findings, the proposed method achieves results like that of specialists, and no measure presented a value of
ρ <
0.05 in the paired t-test. The results demonstrate the potential of the proposed method as a tool to help medical professionals combat COVID-19. fight the COVID-19.
•Incubation effect of GaN at 1030, 515 and 343 nm.•Micromachining threshold fluence of GaN.•Fs-laser micromachining of GaN.
This paper presents a study on the incubation effect during fs-laser ...micromachining of gallium nitride films with three different wavelengths (1030, 515 and 343 nm) by varying the number of laser pulses applied per sample surface area and measuring the damage threshold fluence using the zero damage method. As we implemented the exponential defect accumulation model to the experimental incubation data, we determined the value of the incubation parameter of (0.02 ± 0.01) for 1030 nm, (0.07 ± 0.01) for 515 nm and (0.4 ± 0.1) for 343 nm. This shows that for excitation in the green and infrared spectral region, GaN requires approximately 100 overlapping pulses in order for the incubation to take place while, for ultraviolet excitation, the incubation was achieved faster, with the overlap of about 10 pulses. Furthermore, we compared our data for the single pulse damage threshold with a theoretical model that takes into account multiphoton and avalanche ionization. Our results indicate that at 343 nm and 515 nm, micromachining is dominated by multiphoton ionization, while at 1030 nm other effects, such as tunneling ionization, must also be contributing. Finally, we believe this paper brings relevant information on the fs-laser micromachining of GaN.
Cellulose is a renewable polymer quite abundant on the Earth and very attractive for applications in the construction of eco-friendly biomedical products. The aim of this study was to investigate the ...chemical-physical characteristics of cotton cellulose nanofiber (CCN)/chitosan nanocomposite and its cytocompatibility with human embryonic kidney cells. First, the chemical composition, swelling ratio and surface topography of the nanocomposite were evaluated. Cytocompatibility was then assessed through spreading, proliferation and viability of cells. The experimental results showed that the CCN was an effective nanomaterial agent for increasing the roughness surface of chitosan film. Cell proliferation and changes in cell morphology indicated that the nanocomposite led to improved cell spreading and growth. Cell viability did not decrease after 24 h. However, the cell survival on the nanocomposite was affected at 72 h. The results indicate that CCN/chitosan nanocomposite could be a promising biocompatible biomaterial for biomedical applications.
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