Despite evidence showing that the intake of ultra-processed food has a negative impact on health, diet quality and dietary vitamin E, its impact on vitamin E nutritional status and breast milk ...remains unknown. This study aimed to assess the influence of the consumption of ultra-processed foods on vitamin E biomarkers of lactating women. A cross-sectional study was performed with 294 lactating women. Food consumption was obtained by 24-h dietary recall, and foods were grouped according to the NOVA classification. Levels of α-tocopherol were analysed by HPLC. Breast milk vitamin E (BMVE) adequacy was based on the quantity of the vitamin in the estimated intake volume. The Kruskal–Wallis test was used to compare the tertiles and linear regression to association between ultra-processed food consumption and biomarkers. Ultra-processed foods accounted for 16 % of energy intake and vitamin E intakes by all women were considered low. Serum α-tocopherol was 26·55 (sd 7·98) µmol/l, 5 % (n 11) showed inadequate vitamin E (< 12 µmol/l) and 78 % had an inadequate BMVE content (< 4 mg/780 ml). The regression showed that a higher dietary share of ultra-processed foods was associated with lower concentrations of serum α-tocopherol (β = –0·168, 95 % CI –0·047, 0·010, P = 0·003) and inadequate BMVE content (β = –0·144, 95 % CI = –0·505, 0·063, P = 0·012) (adjustment for income and maternal age). Thus, higher dietary shares of ultra-processed foods had an impact on vitamin E biomarkers, suggesting that inadequate dietary intake practices during lactation may reduce the supply of vitamin E to women and breast milk.
Watersheds are defined as a set of lands where water drainage occurs through rivers and their tributaries. A large quantity of water resources exist in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, where rivers and ...their basins must meet environmental quality standards defined by the limits set out in national environmental council (CONAMA) legislation 357/05 for physicochemical and microbiological parameters, including parasites. Multivariate statistical techniques were applied to study the temporal and spatial variations in water quality of a segment of the Pindaré River. The data set included nine parameters for three sampling points over eleven months. Principal component analysis grouped the monitored sampling points into four clusters and identified electrical conductivity, temperature, total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, salinity, and Escherichia coli as being associated with the dry season and nitrite, nitrate, and turbidity as being associated with the rainy season. Three principal components explained 83.80% of the data variance during the rainy and dry seasons. The evaluated correlations indicated that during the rainy season, nitrite (~0.18 mg L−1) and turbidity (~46.00 NTU) levels were the highest, but pH was at its lowest (~6.61). During the dry season, TDS (~155.00 mg L−1) and pH (~8.10) were highest, and E. coli bacteria was more abundant.
In the present study, we have constructed four new Zn(II) coordination polymers (CPs), formulated as Zn(L1)(DMF)(H2O)2 n ·n(H2O) (1), Zn2(L1)2(DMF)(CH3OH) n (2), Zn(L2)(DMF) n (3), and ...Zn(L2)(4,4′-Bipy) n (4), using polyaromatic group-containing carboxylic acid proligands 5-{(anthracen-9-ylmethyl)amino}isophthalic acid (H 2 L1) and 5-{(pyren-1-ylmethyl)amino}isophthalic acid (H 2 L2) and zinc nitrate under solvothermal conditions. The synthesized proligands were characterized by attenuated total reflectance-infrared Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FT-IR) and NMR techniques. On the other hand, CPs 1–4 were characterized by ATR-FT-IR, thermogravimetry, elemental, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. Single-crystal analysis revealed that CPs 1 and 2 have one- and two-dimensional structures, respectively, whereas CP 3 possesses a one-dimensional (1D) double-chain and CP 4 has a three-dimensional (3D) assembly. The topological analysis showed that 1 has a uninodal 2-connected net, 2 and 3 have 2,4-connected binodal nets, and 3D polymer 4 has a 2,2,8-connected trinodal net. The synthesized CPs were used for the adsorption of various cationic and anionic organic dyes in aqueous media, which was monitored by UV–vis spectroscopy. Among all of the coordination polymers, CP 1 bearing an anthracene group is the most effective one for the removal of different types of dyes (both cationic and anionic) with a removal efficiency of 96–99%. CP 1 presented a rare example where a single CP can adsorb multiple (at least five) cationic and anionic dyes. The adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherms, and thermodynamic parameters of CP 1 were also determined, demonstrating that the adsorption kinetics and the adsorption isotherms obey a pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir model, respectively. However, the pyrene-tagged CPs 3 and 4 can selectively remove (removal efficiency of 97–98%) only the cationic methylene blue (MB) dye from an aqueous solution. In silico studies were performed to understand the mechanism of the removal of the organic dyes. The recyclability tests showed that CP 1 can be recycled at least three times without a marked decrease in its dye removal capacity.
Nickel-based superalloys, namely INCONEL® variants, have had an increase in applications throughout various industries like aeronautics, automotive and energy power plants. These superalloys can ...withstand high-temperature applications without suffering from creep, making them extremely appealing and suitable for manufactured goods such as jet engines or steam turbines. Nevertheless, INCONEL® alloys are considered difficult-to-cut materials, not only due to their superior material properties but also because of their poor thermal conductivity (k) and severe work hardening, which may lead to premature tool wear (TW) and poor final product finishing. In this regard, it is of paramount importance to optimise the machining parameters, to strengthen the process performance outcomes concerning the quality and cost of the product. The present review aims to systematically summarize and analyse the progress taken within the field of INCONEL® machining sensitively over the past five years, with some exceptions, and present the most recent solutions found in the industry, as well as the prospects from researchers. To accomplish this article, ScienceDirect, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and ASME have been used as sources of information as a result of great fidelity knowledge. Books from Woodhead Publishing Series, CRC Press and Academic Press have been also used. The main keywords used in searching information were: “Nickel-based superalloys”, “INCONEL® 718”, “INCONEL® 625” “INCONEL® Machining processes” and “Tool-wear mechanisms”. The combined use of these keywords was crucial to filter the huge information currently available about the evolution of INCONEL® machining technologies. As a main contribution to this work, three SWOT analyses are provided on information that is dispersed in several articles. It was found that significant progress in the traditional cutting tool technologies has been made, nonetheless, the machining of INCONEL® 718 and 625 is still considered a great challenge due to the intrinsic characteristics of those Ni-based-superalloys, whose machining promotes high-wear to the tools and coatings used.
Chromobacterium violaceum is an environmental opportunistic pathogen that causes rare but deadly infections in humans. The transcriptional regulators that C. violaceum uses to sense and respond to ...environmental cues remain largely unknown.
Here, we described a novel transcriptional regulator in C. violaceum belonging to the MarR family that we named OsbR (oxidative stress response and biofilm formation regulator). Transcriptome profiling by DNA microarray using strains with deletion or overexpression of osbR showed that OsbR exerts a global regulatory role in C. violaceum, regulating genes involved in oxidative stress response, nitrate reduction, biofilm formation, and several metabolic pathways. EMSA assays showed that OsbR binds to the promoter regions of several OsbR-regulated genes, and the in vitro DNA binding activity was inhibited by oxidants. We demonstrated that the overexpression of osbR caused activation of ohrA even in the presence of the repressor OhrR, which resulted in improved growth under organic hydroperoxide treatment, as seem by growth curve assays. We showed that the proper regulation of the nar genes by OsbR ensures optimal growth of C. violaceum under anaerobic conditions by tuning the reduction of nitrate to nitrite. Finally, the osbR overexpressing strain showed a reduction in biofilm formation, and this phenotype correlated with the OsbR-mediated repression of two gene clusters encoding putative adhesins.
Together, our data indicated that OsbR is a MarR-type regulator that controls the expression of a large number of genes in C. violaceum, thereby contributing to oxidative stress defense (ohrA/ohrR), anaerobic respiration (narK1K2 and narGHJI), and biofilm formation (putative RTX adhesins).
Controlling the COVID-19 outbreak in Brazil is a challenge due to the population's size and urban density, inefficient maintenance of social distancing and testing strategies, and limited ...availability of testing resources.
The purpose of this study is to effectively prioritize patients who are symptomatic for testing to assist early COVID-19 detection in Brazil, addressing problems related to inefficient testing and control strategies.
Raw data from 55,676 Brazilians were preprocessed, and the chi-square test was used to confirm the relevance of the following features: gender, health professional, fever, sore throat, dyspnea, olfactory disorders, cough, coryza, taste disorders, and headache. Classification models were implemented relying on preprocessed data sets; supervised learning; and the algorithms multilayer perceptron (MLP), gradient boosting machine (GBM), decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), and logistic regression (LR). The models' performances were analyzed using 10-fold cross-validation, classification metrics, and the Friedman and Nemenyi statistical tests. The permutation feature importance method was applied for ranking the features used by the classification models with the highest performances.
Gender, fever, and dyspnea were among the highest-ranked features used by the classification models. The comparative analysis presents MLP, GBM, DT, RF, XGBoost, and SVM as the highest performance models with similar results. KNN and LR were outperformed by the other algorithms. Applying the easy interpretability as an additional comparison criterion, the DT was considered the most suitable model.
The DT classification model can effectively (with a mean accuracy≥89.12%) assist COVID-19 test prioritization in Brazil. The model can be applied to recommend the prioritizing of a patient who is symptomatic for COVID-19 testing.
This work reports an analytical method for determining electrical resistivity (ρ) and sheet resistance (RS) of isotropic conductors. The method is compared with previous numerical solutions and ...available experimental data showing a universal behavior for isotropic conductors. An approximated solution is also reported allowing one to easily determine ρ and RS for samples either with regular or arbitrary shapes.
Ablation of sensory nerves favours melanoma progression Prazeres, Pedro H. D. M.; Leonel, Caroline; Silva, Walison N. ...
Journal of cellular and molecular medicine,
September 2020, Letnik:
24, Številka:
17
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The tumour mass is composed not only of heterogeneous neoplastic cells, but also a variety of other components that may affect cancer cells behaviour. The lack of detailed knowledge about all the ...constituents of the tumour microenvironment restricts the design of effective treatments. Nerves have been reported to contribute to the growth and maintenance of numerous tissues. The effects of sensory innervations on tumour growth remain unclear. Here, by using state‐of‐the‐art techniques, including Cre/loxP technologies, confocal microscopy, in vivo‐tracing and chemical denervation, we revealed the presence of sensory nerves infiltrating within the melanoma microenvironment, and affecting cancer progression. Strikingly, melanoma growth in vivo was accelerated following genetic ablation or chemical denervation of sensory nerves. In humans, a retrospective analysis of melanoma patients revealed that increased expression of genes related to sensory nerves in tumours was associated with better clinical outcomes. These findings suggest that sensory innervations counteract melanoma progression. The emerging knowledge from this research provides a novel target in the tumour microenvironment for therapeutic benefit in cancer patients.
The thermochemical study of the 1,3-bis(
-carbazolyl)benzene (NCB) and 1,4-bis(diphenylamino)benzene (DAB) involved the combination of combustion calorimetric (CC) and thermogravimetric techniques. ...The molar heat capacities over the temperature range of (274.15 to 332.15) K, as well as the melting temperatures and enthalpies of fusion were measured for both compounds by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The standard molar enthalpies of formation in the crystalline phase were calculated from the values of combustion energy, which in turn were measured using a semi-micro combustion calorimeter. From the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), the rate of mass loss as a function of the temperature was measured, which was then correlated with Langmuir's equation to derive the vaporization enthalpies for both compounds. From the combination of experimental thermodynamic parameters, it was possible to derive the enthalpy of formation in the gaseous state of each of the title compounds. This parameter was also estimated from computational studies using the G3MP2B3 composite method. To prove the identity of the compounds, the
H and
C spectra were determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and the Raman spectra of the study compounds of this work were obtained.
To develop recommendations on monitoring for adverse events (AEs) of low-dose glucocorticoid (GC) therapy (≤7.5 mg prednisone or equivalent daily) in clinical trials and daily practice.
Literature ...was searched for articles containing information on incidence and monitoring of GC-related AEs using PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane databases. Second, the authors searched for broad accepted guidelines on the monitoring of certain AEs (eg, WHO guidelines on screening for diabetes). Available data were summarised and discussed among experts (rheumatologists and patients) of the EULAR Task Force to decide which potential AEs should be monitored, how and at which interval.
Data on monitoring proved to be scarce; most articles were focused on therapeutic effects of GCs, not on occurrence and monitoring of AEs. Most recommendations had to be based on consensus. Those for clinical trials aimed at getting insights into incidence, prevalence and clinical relevance of AEs to create a comprehensive and valid AE-profile of GC therapy. The set of AEs to monitor is therefore more extensive, and often consists of assessments at baseline and at end of trials. Recommendations for daily practice are meant to protect patients from real dangers, which can be prevented or treated. Standard care monitoring needs NOT be extended for patients on low-dose GC therapy, except for osteoporosis (follow national guidelines), and baseline assessments of ankle edema, fasting blood glucose and risk factors for glaucoma.
Given the incompleteness of literature data, consensus-based recommendations on monitoring for GC-related AEs were created, separately for daily practice and clinical trials.
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