This work examines the sensitivity of the different channels of the HSB (Humidity Sensor for Brazil), on board the AQUA satellite, for the purpose of retrieving surface rainfall over land. The ...analysis is carried out in two steps: (a) a theoretical study performed using two radiative transfer models, RTTOV and the so-called Eddington method; and (b) the determination of the correlation between coincident measurements of HSB brightness temperatures and radar rainfall estimates during the DRY-TO-WET/AMC/LBA field campaign held in the Amazon region during September and October 2002. Theoretical results indicate the sensitivity of the HSB to water vapour content and cloud liquid water in the precipitation estimation. Theoretical and experimental analyses show that the channels 150 and 183±7 GHz are more adapted to estimate precipitation than the 183±1 and 183±3 GHz channels. The simulation analyses clearly show a hierarchy in physical effects that determine the brightness temperature of these channels. The rain and ice scattering dominate over the absorption of liquid water, and the liquid water absorption effect dominates over the absorption of water vapour. The results show that the 150 and 183±7 channels are more sensitive to the variation of liquid water and ice than the 183±1 and 183±3 channels. For the precipitation estimation using these channels, it was found that it is best adapted to the low precipitation rate situations, since the brightness temperature is rapidly saturated in the presence of high intense precipitation. A case study to estimate precipitation using the radar data has shown that it is possible to adjust a curve that relates the precipitation rate to the brightness temperature of the 150 GHz channel with a good level of accuracy for low precipitation rates.
In 2000, Enterococcus faecalis resistant to vancomycin was first reported at a tertiary hospital in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. The resistance spread to other hospitals and surveillance programs ...were established by hospital infection committees to prevent the spread of vancomycin-resistant enterococci. In February 2002, an isolate initially identified at the genus level as Enterococcus was obtained by surveillance culture (rectal swab) from a patient admitted to a hospital for treatment of septic arthritis in the shoulder. The isolate proved to be resistant to vancomycin by the disc diffusion method and confirmed by an E-test resulting in a minimal inhibitory concentration of > or = 256 microg/ml. This isolate was sent to a reference laboratory (Laboratorio Especial de Bacteriologia e Epidemiologia Molecular, Faculdade de Ciencias Farmaceuticas de Ribeirao Preto, USP) for further study and proved to be an E. gallinarum by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using specific primers for the species. Due to the phenotype of unusually high vancomycin resistance, the isolate presumably had the resistance genes (vanA and vanB) and this was confirmed by PCR, which indicated the presence of the vanA gene. A 10.8-kb Tn1546-related transposon was also identified by long-PCR. Interspecies transfer of the vancomycin-resistance gene from the donor E. gallinarum was performed in a successful conjugation experiment in vitro, using E. faecium GE-1 and E. faecalis JH22 as receptors. This is the first report of the detection of a vanA determinant naturally acquired by E. gallinarum in Brazil, indicating the importance of characterizing VRE by both phenotype and genotype methods.
Objective
There is some evidence that clozapine is significantly underutilised. Also, clozapine use is thought to vary by country, but so far no international study has assessed trends in clozapine ...prescribing. Therefore, this study aimed to assess clozapine use trends on an international scale, using standardised criteria for data analysis.
Method
A repeated cross‐sectional design was applied to data extracts (2005–2014) from 17 countries worldwide.
Results
In 2014, overall clozapine use prevalence was greatest in Finland (189.2/100 000 persons) and in New Zealand (116.3/100 000), and lowest in the Japanese cohort (0.6/100 000), and in the privately insured US cohort (14.0/100 000). From 2005 to 2014, clozapine use increased in almost all studied countries (relative increase: 7.8–197.2%). In most countries, clozapine use was highest in 40–59‐year‐olds (range: 0.6/100 000 (Japan) to 344.8/100 000 (Finland)). In youths (10–19 years), clozapine use was highest in Finland (24.7/100 000) and in the publicly insured US cohort (15.5/100 000).
Conclusion
While clozapine use has increased in most studied countries over recent years, clozapine is still underutilised in many countries, with clozapine utilisation patterns differing significantly between countries. Future research should address the implementation of interventions designed to facilitate increased clozapine utilisation.
Over the last decade, Acinetobacter baumannii resistant to carbapenems has emerged in many medical centres and is commonly associated with high morbidity and mortality. We investigated potential ...mechanisms contributing to antimicrobial resistance of 58 clinical isolates of A. baumannii collected during a prolonged city-wide outbreak in five different hospitals in southern Brazil. The integrase gene was detected in 51 (87·9%) isolates of which 36 harboured class 2 integrons alone and 14 had both class 1 and 2 integrons; all carbapenem-resistant isolates displayed class 2 integrons. ISAba1 was found upstream of blaOXA-23-like only in isolates resistant to carbapenems; however, ISAba1 upstream of blaOXA-51-like was present in both susceptible and resistant isolates. This is the first report of a high prevalence of class 2 integrons in A. baumannii in southern Brazil. Moreover, our study suggests that ISAba1/blaOXA-51-like alone is insufficient to confer resistance to carbapenems.
•Full vibrational assignment of a series of dietary hydroxylated isoflavones.•Complete conformational analysis.•Use of vibrational spectroscopy for establishing reliable structure–activity ...relationships (SARs).•SARs will allow to understand the health-promoting ability of dietary compounds (phytochemicals).
The conformational preferences of a series of hydroxylated isoflavones were studied by optical vibrational spectroscopy (FTIR and Raman) coupled with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Special attention was paid to the effect of the hydroxyl substitution, due to the importance of this group in the biological activity of these systems. The isoflavones investigated – daidzein, genistein and formononetin – were shown to exist in distinct conformations in the solid state, namely regarding the orientation of the hydroxylic groups at C7 and within the catechol moiety, that are determinant factors for their conformational behaviour and antioxidant ability. In the light of the most stable conformers obtained for each molecule, a complete assignment of their experimental vibrational spectra was performed.
Summary Prosthodontics should be one of the means of establishing conditions for the maintenance of periodontal health. The forces applied to the abutment teeth and their effects are very important ...considerations in the design and construction of the removable partial dentures. This 6‐month follow‐up clinical study evaluated the degree of mobility of abutment teeth of distal extension and tooth supported removable partial dentures by using Periotest. Two types of clasp design were selected for evaluation. In cases with unilateral and bilateral distal‐extension, a clasp design including a T clasp of Roach retentive arm, a rigid reciprocal arm and a mesial rest were used. For the abutments of tooth‐supported removable partial dentures, a second clasp design with a cast circumferential buccal retentive arm, a rigid reciprocal clasp arm and a rest adjacent to the edentulous ridges was selected. A total of 68 abutment teeth was analysed. Periotest values were made at the time of denture placement (control) and at 1, 3 and 6 months after the denture placement. The statistical analysis was performed using Friedman test. All analysis was performed at a 0·05 level of significance. The results revelled that no significant changes in tooth mobility were observed during the 6‐months follow‐up (P > 0·05). In conclusion, our findings suggest that adequate oral hygiene instructions, careful prosthetic treatment planning and regular recall appointments play an important role in preventing changes in abutment tooth mobility caused by removable partial denture placement.
This paper describes the synthesis and anti-inflammatory activity of new
N-phenyl-phthalimide sulfonamides (
3a–
e) and the isosters
N-phenyl-phthalimide amides (
4a–
e), designed as hybrids of ...thalidomide (
1) and aryl sulfonamide phosphodiesterase inhibitor (
2). In these series, compound
3e (LASSBio 468), having a sulfonyl-thiomorpholine moiety, showed potent inhibitory activity on LPS-induced neutrophil recruitment with ED
50=2.5
mg kg
−1, which was correlated with its inhibitory effect on TNF-α level.
The synthesis and anti-inflammatory activity of new
N-phenyl-phthalimide sulfonamides (
3a–
e) and
N-phenyl-phthalimide amides (
4a–
e) are reported. Compound
3e (LASSBio-468), having a sulfonyl-thiomorpholine unit, showed potent inhibitory activity on neutrophil recruitment with ED
50 2.5
mg kg
–1, which was correlated with its inhibitory effect on TNF-α level.
•The influence of soil electrical parameters on the calculation of electric fields.•The relative permittivity and conductivity of the soil were plotted.•The proposed model gives good results and is ...easy to handle.
The contribution of the present work is to demonstrate the influence of soil electrical parameters (conductivity and permittivity) on the electric field generated by power line communications (PLC). Soil samples were collected from beneath the high-voltage transmission lines under investigation and analyzed in the laboratory using a simplified method of measuring scattering parameters. These were converted into ABCD parameters in order to obtain the characteristic impedance and then the complex permittivity as a function of frequency. The employed methodology to find the soil electrical parameters as a function of the frequency was compared to the Smith and Longmire model, which is appropriate for modeling in the frequency range of PLC signals. The results obtained by both models for calculating the electrical parameters were applied to the electric field equations developed by D’Amore. Although high-voltage transmission lines generally use narrowband PLC for control system operations, the present work implemented both narrow and broadband analyses.
We report measurements of the magnetoresistance (MR) of platinum in Pt/NiO bilayers made with well textured NiO polycrystalline films over a wide temperature range. We show that the MR arises from ...two sources, the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) and the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). The latter results from the magnetic proximity effect of Pt in atomic contact with one of the antiferromagnetic NiO sublattices. The SMR is produced by the charge current generated in the Pt layer by the spin current back reflected from the antiferromagnetic insulating (AFI) NiO film through the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE). As previously observed in Pt with NiO in the form of bulk crystals or epitaxial films, here the SMR exhibits oscillations in the field angle variation shifted by 90° relative to that observed in the insulating ferrimagnet yttrium iron garnet (YIG). Measurements in the temperature range 10–300 K show that the SMR increases with temperature while the AMR remains constant. The total magnetoresistance of Pt/NiO measured at room temperature with well textured NiO polycrystalline films is substantially larger than the values reported for crystalline or epitaxial NiO.
Background
Plasmodium vivax is the most prevalent malaria species in Brazil. The parasite-host coevolutionary process can be viewed as an 'arms race', in which adaptive genetic changes in one are ...eventually matched by alterations in the other.
Methods
Following the candidate gene approach we analyzed the CD40, CD40L and BLYS genes that participate in B-cell co-stimulation, for associations with P. vivax malaria. The study sample included 97 patients and 103 controls. We extracted DNA using the extraction and purification commercial kit and identified the following SNPs: −1C > T in the CD40 gene, −726T > C in the CD40L gene and the −871C > T in the BLyS gene using PCR-RFLP. We analyzed the genotype and allele frequencies by direct counting. We also compared the observed with the expected genotype frequencies using the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.
Results
The allele and genotype frequencies for these SNPs did not differ statistically between patient and control groups. Gene-gene interactions were not observed between the CD40 and BLYS and between the CD40L and BLYS genes. Overall, the genes were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Significant differences were not observed among the frequencies of antibody responses against P. vivax sporozoite and erythrocytic antigens and the CD40 and BLYS genotypes.
Conclusions
The results of this study show that, although the investigated CD40, CD40L and BLYS alleles differ functionally, this variation does not alter the functionality of the molecules in a way that would interfere in susceptibility to the disease. The variants of these genes may influence the clinical course rather than simply increase or decrease susceptibility.
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