The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of Chlorella vulgaris (5% in the diet), supplemented or not with two exogenous carbohydrase mixtures on piglets' performance, nutrient ...digestibility and gut morphology, fermentation products and microbiota. Forty-four male piglets weaned at 28 days of age, with 11.2 ± 0.46 kg of live weight, were used and assigned to 1 of 4 dietary treatments: cereal and soybean meal based-diet (control, n = 11), control diet with 5% of C. vulgaris (CH, n = 10), CH diet supplemented with 0.005% of Rovabio
Excel AP (CH + R, n = 10) and CH diet supplemented with 0.01% of a recombinant 4-carbohydrase mixture (CH + M, n = 11). Growth performance was not changed by the of C. vulgaris inclusion during 21 days of trial. However, total tract apparent digestibility of nutritional fractions was negatively impacted by the inclusion. In addition, the viscosity of duodenum plus jejunum contents slightly increased in all groups fed with the microalga. In contrast, dietary microalga increased duodenum villus height and promoted a healthier gut microbiota, with higher abundance of some specific bacterial taxa (Colidextribacter, Oscillospira and Lactobacillus). This study indicates that the dietary inclusion of 5% C. vulgaris improves piglets' gut health without impairing performance. Data also indicate that C. vulgaris reduces nutrient digestibility but promotes compensatory developments of gut mucosa and prebiotic effects. Dietary supplementation with exogenous carbohydrases does not seem to be necessary for this inclusion level. Therefore, the incorporation of CH as a sustainable feed ingredient in piglets' nutrition is a viable alternative approach.
Purpose
Assessing the body composition of children and adolescents is important to monitor their health status. Anthropometric measurements are feasible and less-expensive than other techniques for ...body composition assessment. This study aimed to systematically map anthropometric equations to predict adipose tissue, body fat, or density in children and adolescents, and to analyze methodological aspects of the development of anthropometric equations using skinfolds.
Methods
A scoping review was carried out following the PRISMA-ScR criteria. The search was carried out in eight databases. The methodological structure protocol of this scoping review was retrospectively registered in the Open Science Framework (
https://osf.io/35uhc/
).
Results
We included 78 reports and 593 anthropometric equations. The samples consisted of healthy individuals, people with different diseases or disabilities, and athletes from different sports. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was the reference method most commonly used in developing equations. Triceps and subscapular skinfolds were the anthropometric measurements most frequently used as predictors in the equations. Age, stage of sexual maturation, and peak height velocity were used as complementary variables in the equations.
Conclusion
Our scoping review identified equations proposed for children and adolescents with a great diversity of characteristics. In many of the reports, important methodological aspects were not addressed, a factor that may be associated with equation bias.
Level IV
Evidence obtained from multiple time series analysis such as case studies. (NB: dramatic results in uncontrolled trials might also be regarded as this type of evidence).
Experiments based on a 23 central composite full factorial design were carried out in 200-ml stainless-steel containers to study the pretreatment, with dilute sulfuric acid, of a sugarcane bagasse ...sample obtained from a local sugar–alcohol mill. The independent variables selected for study were temperature, varied from 112.5°C to 157.5°C, residence time, varied from 5.0 to 35.0 min, and sulfuric acid concentration, varied from 0.0% to 3.0% (w/v). Bagasse loading of 15% (w/w) was used in all experiments. Statistical analysis of the experimental results showed that all three independent variables significantly influenced the response variables, namely the bagasse solubilization, efficiency of xylose recovery in the hemicellulosic hydrolysate, efficiency of cellulose enzymatic saccharification, and percentages of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in the pretreated solids. Temperature was the factor that influenced the response variables the most, followed by acid concentration and residence time, in that order. Although harsher pretreatment conditions promoted almost complete removal of the hemicellulosic fraction, the amount of xylose recovered in the hemicellulosic hydrolysate did not exceed 61.8% of the maximum theoretical value. Cellulose enzymatic saccharification was favored by more efficient removal of hemicellulose during the pretreatment. However, detoxification of the hemicellulosic hydrolysate was necessary for better bioconversion of the sugars to ethanol.
The influence of a high inclusion level of
, individually and supplemented with two carbohydrase mixtures, in finishing pig diets was assessed on zootechnical performance, carcass characteristics, ...pork quality traits and nutritional value of pork fat. Forty crossbred entire male pigs, sons of Large White × Landrace sows crossed with Pietrain boars, with an initial live weight of 59.1 ± 5.69 kg were used in this trial. Swines were randomly assigned to one of four dietary treatments (
= 10): cereal and soybean meal-based diet (control), control diet with 5%
(CV), CV diet supplemented with 0.005% Rovabio
Excel AP (CV + R) and CV diet supplemented with 0.01% of a four-CAZyme mixture (CV + M). Animals were slaughtered, after the finishing period, with a BW of 101 ± 1.9 kg. Growth performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality traits were not influenced (
> 0.05) by the incorporation of
in the diets. However, the inclusion of the microalga in finishing pig diets increased some lipid-soluble antioxidant pigments and
-3 PUFA, and decreased the
-6:
-3 ratio of fatty acids, thus ameliorating the nutritional value of pork fat. Moreover, the supplementation of diets with the carbohydrase mixtures did not change (
> 0.05) neither animal performance nor meat quality traits, indicating their inefficacy in the increase of digestive utilization of
by pigs under these experimental conditions. It is concluded that the use of
in finishing pig diets, at this high incorporation level, improves the nutritional value of pork fat without compromising pig performance.
Interactions between proteins and non-proteic small molecule ligands play important roles in the biological processes of living systems. Thus, the development of computational methods to support our ...understanding of the ligand-receptor recognition process is of fundamental importance since these methods are a major step towards ligand prediction, target identification, lead discovery, and more. This article presents visGReMLIN, a web server that couples a graph mining-based strategy to detect motifs at the protein-ligand interface with an interactive platform to visually explore and interpret these motifs in the context of protein-ligand interfaces.
To illustrate the potential of visGReMLIN, we conducted two cases in which our strategy was compared with previous experimentally and computationally determined results. visGReMLIN allowed us to detect patterns previously documented in the literature in a totally visual manner. In addition, we found some motifs that we believe are relevant to protein-ligand interactions in the analyzed datasets.
We aimed to build a visual analytics-oriented web server to detect and visualize common motifs at the protein-ligand interface. visGReMLIN motifs can support users in gaining insights on the key atoms/residues responsible for protein-ligand interactions in a dataset of complexes.
Control charts are tools of paramount importance in statistical process control. They are broadly applied in monitoring processes and improving quality, as they allow the detection of special causes ...of variation with a significant level of accuracy. Furthermore, there are several strategies able to be employed in different contexts, all of which offer their own advantages. Therefore, this study focuses on monitoring the variability in univariate processes through variance using the Binomial version of the ATTRIVAR Same Sample S2 (B-ATTRIVAR SS S2) control chart, given that it allows coupling attribute and variable inspections (ATTRIVAR means attribute + variable), i.e., taking advantage of the cost-effectiveness of the former and the wealth of information and greater performance of the latter. Its Binomial version was used for such a purpose, since inspections are made using two attributes, and the Same Sample was used due to being submitted to both the attribute and variable stages of inspection. A computational application was developed in the R language using the Shiny package so as to create an interface to facilitate its application and use in the quality control of the production processes. Its application enables users to input process parameters and generate the B-ATTRIVAR SS control chart for monitoring the process variability with variance. By comparing the data obtained from its application with a simpler code, its performance was validated, given that its results exhibited striking similarity.
Interleukin 33 (IL-33) is a new member of the IL-1 family of cytokines which signals via its receptor, ST2 (IL-33R), and has an important role in Th2 and mast cell responses. This study shows that ...IL-33 orchestrates neutrophil migration in arthritis.
Methylated bovine serum albumin (mBSA) challenge in the knee joint of mBSA-immunised mice induced local neutrophil migration accompanied by increased IL-33R and IL-33 mRNA expression. Cell migration was inhibited by systemic and local treatments with soluble (s)IL-33R, an IL-33 decoy receptor, and was not evident in IL-33R-deficient mice. IL-33 injection also induced IL-33R-dependent neutrophil migration. Antigen- and IL-33-induced neutrophil migration in the joint was dependent on CXCL1, CCL3, tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) and IL-1beta synthesis. Synovial tissue, macrophages and activated neutrophils expressed IL-33R. IL-33 induces neutrophil migration by activating macrophages to produce chemokines and cytokines and by directly acting on neutrophils. Importantly, neutrophils from patients with rheumatoid arthritis successfully treated with anti-TNFalpha antibody (infliximab) expressed significantly lower levels of IL-33R than patients treated with methotrexate alone. Only neutrophils from patients treated with methotrexate alone or from normal donors stimulated with TNFalpha responded to IL-33 in chemotaxis.
These results suggest that suppression of IL-33R expression in neutrophils, preventing IL-33-induced neutrophil migration, may be an important mechanism of anti-TNFalpha therapy of inflammation.
The aviation sector has become a considerable market for biofuels since they come from renewable sources and have characteristics that help to reduce pollution. Hydrocarbons production from vegetable ...oils and their derivates for use in diesel and aviation kerosene are a possible alternative route to reduce fossil fuels. With that in mind, this article aimed to develop nickel catalysts supported on γ-Al2O3, Nb2O5, and zeolites to submit them to the hydroprocessing of vegetable oils and derivatives in the production of hydrocarbons. With soy ester, reactions with the Ni/Al2O3 and Ni/Nb2O5 catalyst showed selectivity of 41.2 and 16.5%, respectively, at a temperature of 300°C and a reaction time of 7 h. Under the same conditions, hydroprocessing reactions for the soybean ester using Ni/Beta and Ni/HY zeolites promoted more excellent conversion (between 80 and 99%) than oxide catalysts and selectivity between 30 and 70% for Ni/Beta and Ni/HY, correspondently. Besides, zeolite catalysts showed high conversion at the higher temperature (340°C) and time (9 h), reaching 100% conversion and hydrocarbons selectivity of 76.8 and 61.9% for zeolite Beta and HY, respectively. Changing the raw material to fatty acids made it possible to notice that zeolite catalysts showed high selectivity reaching 100%. Given the excellent performance of catalysts in hydroprocessing reactions, it is possible to consider them a promising alternative route since they can reduce the production by applying transition metal as a catalyst instead of noble metals used in the industry.
Abstract Social media data is a rich source of information to assess human activities in catastrophic events. Here, we use social media data to understand how the 2019 Brazilian oil spill influenced ...social attitudes. Data were collected from the globally popular Instagram platform between August 1, 2019 and March 1, 2020. First, we manually identified the 5 most popular (portuguese language) hashtags related to the oil spill #oleonononordeste; #desastreambiental; #marsemoleo; #sosnordeste; #marsempetroleo. In the sequence, we collected information on captions, post metadata and users associated with posts retrieved using the selected hashtags. We identified a total of 7,413 posts. These posts were grouped in topics: government (47.76%), protest (24.37%), volunteers (24.45%), biodiversity (0.003%), origin (0.006%), tourism (0.008%) and others (0.016%). All topics had the peak of posts in October and November 2019. Nevertheless, interest in the oil spill was temporary, with most posts appearing in the 2-4 months after the beginning of the disaster. Our findings illustrate the enormous potential of using social media data for understanding and monitoring human engagement with environmental disasters, but also suggest that conservationists and environmental groups may only have a limited ‘window of opportunity’ to engage and mobilize public support for remediation and restoration efforts.
Multidrug resistance (MDR) of human tumors has resulted in an immediate need to develop appropriate new drugs. This work outlines the development of 20 potent IQQ N-oxide derivatives in two isomeric ...families, both exhibiting nanomolar GI50 against human tumor cell lines. Preliminary NCI-60 tumor screening sees the C(6) isomers achieve a mean GI50 > 2 times lower than the corresponding C(7) isomers. MDR evaluation of nine selected compounds reveals that each presents lower GI50 concentrations in two MDR tumor cell lines. Four of the series display nanomolar GI50 values against MDR cells, having selectivity ratios up to 2.7 versus the sensitive (parental) cells. The most potent compound 25 inhibits the activity of drug efflux pumps in MDR cells, causes significant ROS accumulation, and potently inhibits cell proliferation, causing alterations in the cell cycle profile. Our findings are confirmed by 3D spheroid models, providing new candidates for studies against MDR cancers.Multidrug resistance (MDR) of human tumors has resulted in an immediate need to develop appropriate new drugs. This work outlines the development of 20 potent IQQ N-oxide derivatives in two isomeric families, both exhibiting nanomolar GI50 against human tumor cell lines. Preliminary NCI-60 tumor screening sees the C(6) isomers achieve a mean GI50 > 2 times lower than the corresponding C(7) isomers. MDR evaluation of nine selected compounds reveals that each presents lower GI50 concentrations in two MDR tumor cell lines. Four of the series display nanomolar GI50 values against MDR cells, having selectivity ratios up to 2.7 versus the sensitive (parental) cells. The most potent compound 25 inhibits the activity of drug efflux pumps in MDR cells, causes significant ROS accumulation, and potently inhibits cell proliferation, causing alterations in the cell cycle profile. Our findings are confirmed by 3D spheroid models, providing new candidates for studies against MDR cancers.
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