Approximately 20,000 species of flowering plant offer mainly pollen to their pollinators, generally bees. Stamen dimorphism, a floral trait commonly present in some pollen flowers, is thought to be ...associated with exclusive pollen provision for highly effective bee pollinators. Notwithstanding, little is known about how stamen dimorphism is related to other floral morphological traits and, consequently, plant–pollinator interactions at the community scale. Here we investigated the relationship between stamen dimorphism and other floral morphological traits, as well as the interactions with pollinators in plants of Melastomataceae.
We characterized each plant species as stamen dimorphic or stamen isomorphic according to differences in size and shape between stamen sets. Data on interactions between the plants and their bee pollinators were analysed as quantitative bipartite networks.
We found that petal and style size and shape were correlated to stamen dimorphism. Stamen dimorphic species present larger flowers and less variable style shapes than stamen isomorphic species. Furthermore, stamen dimorphism is associated with higher richness of visiting bees, i.e. higher ecological generalization.
During the evolutionary history of Melastomataceae, the dependence on pollinators for fruit set has possibly favoured the evolution of larger flowers with dimorphic stamens, which in turn are able to make use of a larger spectrum of pollen‐collecting bees, leading to ecological generalization.
Stamen dimorphic species present larger flowers, have less variable style shapes and are associated with greater richness of visiting bees than stamen isomorphic species.
This study aimed to estimate the economic costs of excessive sodium consumption in terms of hospitalizations and outpatient procedures of medium and high complexity (OPMHC) for the Brazilian Unified ...Health System (SUS) and its states in 2019.
Ecological study.
This study used population attributable fractions (PAFs) of excessive sodium consumption estimated by the Global Burden of Disease study based on the theoretical minimum risk exposure level (3 g of sodium per day), the average population consumption, and relative risks of sodium–outcome pairs. PAFs were applied to the total costs of hospitalizations and OPMHC paid by SUS for each outcome obtained from the Outpatient and Hospital Information Systems. The costs per 10,000 inhabitants in all the Brazilian states were calculated and converted into international dollars (Int$), considering the purchasing parity power in the year 2019.
Excessive sodium consumption resulted in Int$ 98,882,386.36 (95% uncertainty interval: Int$ 3,398,343.53–312,065,319.80) in hospitalizations and OPMHC costs in Brazil in 2019. Males and the 55- to 69-year-old age group had the highest expenditures attributable to excessive sodium consumption. Cardiovascular diseases were the most significant contributors to the costs associated with the risk factor. Southern and southeastern states had the highest costs of diseases attributable to sodium.
Excessive sodium consumption has a significant economic burden on SUS, particularly among men and more developed states. This underscores the inequalities in socio-economic factors and access to health services throughout the country. Economic analyses at the subnational level can provide evidence for public policy planning to define the most appropriate actions for the population's sociodemographic reality.
•A finite element model is developed to study transport by diffusion and convection inside a microfluidic device.•Spatiotemporal distribution of glucose across hydrogel inside a microfluidic device ...are determined.•Combination of porosity and permeability of the hydrogel matrix along with different flow rate are analyzed.•Glucose gradient concentration across two different hydrogels commonly used in biological trials are investigated.•Porosity influences on chemical gradient when fluid flow across hydrogel is quite low whilst permeability is the most influencing parameter when fluid flow is induced across hydrogel.
Glucose plays an important role as a source of nutrients and influence cellular processes such as differentiation, proliferation and migration. In vitro models based on microfluidic devices represent an alternative to study several biological processes in a more reproducible and controllable method compared to in vivo models. Glucose concentration across a microfluidic chip and its behavior in experimental conditions is not completely understood.
This paper investigated the spatiotemporal distribution of glucose across the hydrogel inside a microfluidic chip. The influence of different parameters, boundary and initial conditions of experiments on glucose concentration was studied.
A finite element model using a two dimensional geometry was developed. With this model, patterns of glucose concentration were investigated for different combinations of flow rate of culture medium, permeability and porosity of the medium. Patterns were also studied for two hydrogels made of collagen type I and fibrin with different initial and boundary conditions for pressure and glucose concentration.
Porosity influenced significantly on the chemical gradients generated when interstitial fluid flow was null or neglectable. A difference in concentration lower than 15% was obtained at the input of microchamber and after 90 min, when porosity changed from 0.5 to 0.99. In addition, no significant effects of modifications in permeability were observed. Regarding the collagen and fibrin matrices, in the presence of a pressure gradient of 40 Pa, the permeability significantly influenced on the concentration gradients generated.
Porosity influences importantly on patterns when diffusion is the main transport mechanism. Permeability is the most influencing parameter when a fluid flow is present. Common insertion rates of culture medium does not significantly modify the patterns of glucose inside the chips. Thus, new experiments must consider the impact of such parameters on the distribution and the time span that nutrients occupy the medium. To better contribute with experimental trials, other studies involving cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions, and different chip geometries should be developed. The results of the present work could assist to develop specific systems for experimentation, to design new experiments and to improve the analysis of the obtained results.
Chromatin is essentially an array of nucleosomes, each of which consists of the DNA double-stranded fiber wrapped around a histone octamer. This organization supports cellular processes such as DNA ...replication, DNA transcription, and DNA repair in all eukaryotes. Human histone H4 is encoded by fourteen canonical histone H4 genes, all differing at the nucleotide level but encoding an invariant protein. Here, we present a cohort of 29 subjects with de novo missense variants in six H4 genes (H4C3, H4C4, H4C5, H4C6, H4C9, and H4C11) identified by whole-exome sequencing and matchmaking. All individuals present with neurodevelopmental features of intellectual disability and motor and/or gross developmental delay, while non-neurological features are more variable. Ten amino acids are affected, six recurrently, and are all located within the H4 core or C-terminal tail. These variants cluster to specific regions of the core H4 globular domain, where protein-protein interactions occur with either other histone subunits or histone chaperones. Functional consequences of the identified variants were evaluated in zebrafish embryos, which displayed abnormal general development, defective head organs, and reduced body axis length, providing compelling evidence for the causality of the reported disorder(s). While multiple developmental syndromes have been linked to chromatin-associated factors, missense-bearing histone variants (e.g., H3 oncohistones) are only recently emerging as a major cause of pathogenicity. Our findings establish a broader involvement of H4 variants in developmental syndromes.
In northeastern Brazil, grape pomace has become a potential alternative byproduct because of the recover phenolic compounds from the vinification process. Comparative analyses were performed between ...lyophilized extract of grape skins from pomace, described as fermented (FGS), and fresh, unfermented (UGS) grape skins to show the relevant brand's composition upon the first maceration in winemaking.
The use of in vitro testing such as Folin-Ciocalteu's, DPPH free radical scavenger and HPLC methods were performed to evidence antioxidant effect and phenolic compounds. Additionally, vascular reactivity studies were performed in third-order branches of rat superior mesenteric arteries, which were obtained and placed in organ baths containing Krebs-Henseleit solution, maintained at 37 °C, gassed with a mixture of 95% O
and 5% CO
, and maintained at pH 7.4. The in situ formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was evaluated in small mesenteric rings using oxidative fluorescent dihydroethidium dye.
We found higher phenolic content and antioxidant activity in FGS when compared to UGS. HPLC analyses identified a significant number of phenolic compounds with antioxidant potential in both samples. The vasorelaxant effect induced by FGS was more potent than that induced by UGS, and the activity was attenuated after removal of vascular endothelium or by blockade of endothelium-derived relaxing factors, such as NO and EDHF.
The FGS extract may be a great source of natural polyphenol products with potent antioxidant effects and endothelium-dependent vasodilatory actions involving NO and EDHF pathways.
Antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii were assayed in sera of 266 humans from 71 farms located at Rondônia State, Western Amazon, Brazil, by the modified agglutination test (MAT) and the indirect ...immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT). Antibodies were found in 195 humans (73.3%), with MAT titers of 1:25 in 11, 1:50 in 11, 1:100 in 16, 1:200 in 27, 1:400 in 38, 1:800 in 37, 1:1,600 in 22, and 1:3,200 or higher in 33. From the 71 farms visited, 69 had seropositive humans. Prevalence of anti-T. gondii antibodies increased with age of the people (P < 0.05), and no difference was observed in the occurrence by gender (P > 0.05). A sanitary questionnaire was applied in each farm, and statistical association between the serologic status and several variables were analyzed. Home-grown vegetable consumption and origin of drinking water (well or river) were the independent variables that displayed significant association (P = 0.002 and 0.02, respectively). Higher values of occurrence were found in people with consumption of home-grown vegetables (76.1%) and people that drink well water (75.4%) compared with people that did not consume this type of food (61.9%) and drink river water (55.2%). By IFAT (≥1:16), 194 of 266 (73%) humans were seropositive and there was a good correlation between MAT and IFAT.
Background
Artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision (CV) have revolutionized image analysis. In surgery, CV applications have focused on surgical phase identification in laparoscopic videos. ...We proposed to apply CV techniques to identify phases in an endoscopic procedure, peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM).
Methods
POEM videos were collected from Massachusetts General and Showa University Koto Toyosu Hospitals. Videos were labeled by surgeons with the following ground truth phases: (1) Submucosal injection, (2) Mucosotomy, (3) Submucosal tunnel, (4) Myotomy, and (5) Mucosotomy closure. The deep-learning CV model—Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) plus Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)—was trained on 30 videos to create POEMNet. We then used POEMNet to identify operative phases in the remaining 20 videos. The model’s performance was compared to surgeon annotated ground truth.
Results
POEMNet’s overall phase identification accuracy was 87.6% (95% CI 87.4–87.9%). When evaluated on a per-phase basis, the model performed well, with mean unweighted and prevalence-weighted F1 scores of 0.766 and 0.875, respectively. The model performed best with longer phases, with 70.6% accuracy for phases that had a duration under 5 min and 88.3% accuracy for longer phases.
Discussion
A deep-learning-based approach to CV, previously successful in laparoscopic video phase identification, translates well to endoscopic procedures. With continued refinements, AI could contribute to intra-operative decision-support systems and post-operative risk prediction.
To develop and assess AI algorithms to identify operative steps in laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG).
Computer vision, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), allows for quantitative analysis of ...video by computers for identification of objects and patterns, such as in autonomous driving.
Intraoperative video from LSG from an academic institution was annotated by 2 fellowship-trained, board-certified bariatric surgeons. Videos were segmented into the following steps: 1) port placement, 2) liver retraction, 3) liver biopsy, 4) gastrocolic ligament dissection, 5) stapling of the stomach, 6) bagging specimen, and 7) final inspection of staple line. Deep neural networks were used to analyze videos. Accuracy of operative step identification by the AI was determined by comparing to surgeon annotations.
Eighty-eight cases of LSG were analyzed. A random 70% sample of these clips was used to train the AI and 30% to test the AI's performance. Mean concordance correlation coefficient for human annotators was 0.862, suggesting excellent agreement. Mean (±SD) accuracy of the AI in identifying operative steps in the test set was 82% ± 4% with a maximum of 85.6%.
AI can extract quantitative surgical data from video with 85.6% accuracy. This suggests operative video could be used as a quantitative data source for research in intraoperative clinical decision support, risk prediction, or outcomes studies.
The present study aimed to investigate the physiological response to CrossFit "workouts of the day" (WODs) based on two different structures of training session: 1) the "as many repetitions as ...possible" (AMRAP) "Cindy" and 2) the "round for time" (RFT) "Open 18.4" session. CrossFit athletes (11 men and 12 women) were divided into two groups: 1) one performing the WOD "Cindy" (GC) and 2) one performing the WOD "Open 18.4" (GO). Before, immediately after and 30 min after WODs, blood lactate (LAC), heart rate (HR) and systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP) were measured. A two-way ANOVA indicated differences in physiological responses between GC and GO. Both WODs increased HR to similar levels. Only GO significantly increased SBP immediately after exercise compared to the rest period (
< 0.01), with no difference to GC. GO presented higher levels of LAC immediately after exercise compared to GC (15.8 ± 4.9 mM GO vs 9.3 ± 2.3 mM GC;
< 0.01). LAC remained different between the groups 30 min after exercise (7.0 ± 3.9 mM GO vs 3.9 ± 0.9 mM GC;
< 0.01). The results suggest that the studied WODs do not differ in acute cardiovascular responses, but depend on different metabolic demands, with RFT structure relying more on glycolytic metabolism (indicated by greater LAC levels after exercise in GO). Such results are in agreement independent of gender.
PDF
