The Approximate Bayesian Computing (ABC) was used in this work to perform the selection and calibration of models in reactor dynamics. Five phenomenologically based hydrodynamic models on dead ...volume, flow deviation and retro-mix anomalies were evaluated and classified into two groups. The inverse problems were solved from experimental data obtained by the technique of residence time distribution (RTD) in positive step, using the methylene blue tracer in a stirred-tank reactor. The experiments evaluated the influence of volumetric flow, effluent outlet position, agitation position and rotation on the hydrodynamic characterization of the reactor. The results revealed that the most influential parameter in the first group was the dead volume, while in the second group, the retro-mix anomaly was highly sensitive to rotation. The ABC algorithm applied in this work used the Morozov discrepancy principle to select the tolerance in the final population. Tolerances for other intermediate populations were obtained from the median distance of each particle accepted in the previous population.
HIGHLIGHTS
The application of the Bayesian approach in RTD problems was excellent for the hydrodynamic characterization of reactors.
The ABC SMC algorithm proved to be efficient for the calibration and selection of hydrodynamic models of reactors.
The most influential anomaly in the flow was the dead volume.
Canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL), caused by the protozoan
, affects several organs, including the skin. Dogs are considered the major domestic reservoir animals for leishmaniasis, and through ...their highly parasitized skin, they can serve as a source of infection for sandfly vectors. Therefore, studies of the skin parasite-host relationship can contribute to the understanding of the infectious dissemination processes of parasites in the dermis and help to identify targets for diagnosis and treatment. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the association of anatomical vascular differences and
-induced vascular morphological changes with clinical signs and parasite load by analyzing the ear and abdominal skin from dogs naturally infected with
. Paired samples of ear and abdominal skin from
-positive dogs (
= 26) were submitted for histological and immunohistochemistry analyses. The ear skin samples showed a more intense and more diffusely distributed granulomatous inflammatory reaction, a higher number and larger diameter of blood vessels, increased parasite load, higher expression of VEGF+ (vascular endothelial growth factor) and MAC 387+ (calprotectin) recently infiltrating cells, and more intense collagen disruption compared to the abdominal skin samples. Intracellular amastigotes were observed in blood vessels and inside endothelial cells and were diffusely distributed throughout the dermis in the ear skin samples. The NOS2/MAC387+ cell ratio was lower in the ear skin samples than in those of the abdomen, suggesting that in the ear dermis, the inflammatory infiltrate was less capable of producing NO and thereby control the parasite load. Together, these findings indicate how parasites and immune cells are distributed in the skin and suggest an important role for dermal vascularization in cellular influx and thereby in parasite dissemination through the skin of naturally infected dogs.
Summary On the continuum of maternal health care, two extreme situations exist: too little, too late (TLTL) and too much, too soon (TMTS). TLTL describes care with inadequate resources, below ...evidence-based standards, or care withheld or unavailable until too late to help. TLTL is an underlying problem associated with high maternal mortality and morbidity. TMTS describes the routine over-medicalisation of normal pregnancy and birth. TMTS includes unnecessary use of non-evidence-based interventions, as well as use of interventions that can be life saving when used appropriately, but harmful when applied routinely or overused. As facility births increase, so does the recognition that TMTS causes harm and increases health costs, and often concentrates disrespect and abuse. Although TMTS is typically ascribed to high-income countries and TLTL to low-income and middle-income ones, social and health inequities mean these extremes coexist in many countries. A global approach to quality and equitable maternal health, supporting the implementation of respectful, evidence-based care for all, is urgently needed. We present a systematic review of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for routine antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care, categorising them as recommended, recommended only for clinical indications, and not recommended. We also present prevalence data from middle-income countries for specific clinical practices, which demonstrate TLTL and increasing TMTS. Health-care providers and health systems need to ensure that all women receive high-quality, evidence-based, equitable and respectful care. The right amount of care needs to be offered at the right time, and delivered in a manner that respects, protects, and promotes human rights.
The imbalanced carrier mobility remains a bottleneck for performance breakthrough in even those organic solar cells (OSCs) with recorded power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). Herein, a counter ...electrode doping strategy is proposed to reshape the internal potential distribution, which targets to extract the low mobility carriers at far end. Device simulations reveal that the key of this strategy is to partially dope the active layer with a certain depth, therefore it strengthens the electric field for low mobility carriers near counter electrode region while avoids zeroing the electric field near collection electrode region. Taking advantage of these, PCE enhancements are obtained from 15.4% to 16.2% and from 16.9% to 18.0%, respectively, via cathode p‐doping and anode n‐doping. Extending its application from opaque to semitransparent devices, the PCE of dilute cell rises from 10.5% to 12.1%, with a high light utilization efficiency (LUE) of 3.5%. The findings provide practical solutions to the core device physical problem in OSCs.
Counter‐electrode doping strengthens the low mobility carrier collection at the far end by reshaping the internal electric potential distribution within the active layer. Applying this strategy to semitransparent devices, a good balance between PCE and AVT is achieved to produce a higher LUE.
This study evaluated the effect of different restorative techniques for non-carious cervical lesions (NCCL) on polymerization shrinkage stress of resins using three-dimensional (3D) finite element ...analysis (FEA).
3D-models of a maxillary premolar with a NCCL restored with different filling techniques (bulk filling and incremental) were generated to be compared by nonlinear FEA. The bulk filling technique was used for groups B (NCCL restored with Filtek™ Bulk Fill) and C (Filtek™ Z350 XT). The incremental technique was subdivided according to mode of application: P (2 parallel increments of the Filtek™ Z350 XT), OI (2 oblique increments of the Filtek™ Z350 XT, with incisal first), OIV (2 oblique increments of the Filtek™ Z350 XT, with incisal first and increments with the same volume), OG (2 oblique increments of the Filtek™ Z350 XT, with gingival first) and OGV (2 oblique increments of the Filtek™ Z350 XT, with gingival first and increments with the same volume), resulting in 7 models. All materials were considered isotropic, elastic and linear. The results were expressed in maximum principal stress (MPS).
The tension stress distribution was influenced by the restorative technique. The lowest stress concentration occurred in group B followed by OG, OGV, OI, OIV, P and C; the incisal interface was more affected than the gingival.
The restoration of NCCLs with bulk fill composite resulted in lower shrinkage stress in the gingival and incisal areas, followed by incremental techniques with the initial increment placed on the gingival wall.
The non-carious cervical lesions (NCCLs) restored with bulk fill composite have a more favorable biomechanical behavior.
Cobalt catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation of three distinct supports: alumina, niobia and 10 wt% niobia/alumina, prepared by wet impregnation of niobia precursor on alumina. Niobia addition ...decreased alumina acidity, improved catalyst reducibility and reduced the formation of spinel phases (CoAl2O4 and Co2AlO4). The catalysts were evaluated on steam reforming of glycerol for 30 h at 500 °C, GHSV of 200,000 h−1 and using a glycerol solution 20% v/v in feed. The best performance was obtained for the catalyst supported on Nb2O5/Al2O3 (CoNbAl), which presented the highest conversion into gas (90%) and hydrogen yield (65%) during the first 8 h of reaction. All the catalysts suffered deactivation after 24 h of reaction due to coke formation, but the nature of coke (amorphous or graphitic) and its formation mechanism is different for each catalyst. A more in-depth study on the effect of temperature on CoNbAl catalyst performance was conducted in the range from 400 °C to 600 °C, keeping glycerol concentration in feed at 40% v/v of glycerol and GHSV of 200,000 h−1. Hydrogen yield increased from 5% at 400 °C to 15% at 600 °C. A kinetic study was also performed for this catalyst, obtaining an apparent activation energy of 16.2 kJmol-1 by Arrhenius equation.
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•Co supported on Al2O3, Nb2O5 and 10%Nb2O5/Al2O3 were evaluated.•Niobia addition decreased alumina acidity and improved catalyst reducibility.•Co/10%Nb2O5/Al2O3 presented the highest activity at 500 °C in the first 8 h.•This catalyst showed H2 yield of 65% and glycerol conversion into gas of 90%.•All the catalysts suffered deactivation after 24 h due to coke formation.
Muscle tissue damage is one of the local effects described in bothropic envenomations. Bothropstoxin-I (BthTX-I), from Bothrops jararacussu venom, is a K49-phospholipase A2 (PLA2) that induces a ...massive muscle tissue injury, and, consequently, local inflammatory reaction. The NLRP3 inflammasome is a sensor that triggers inflammation by activating caspase 1 and releasing interleukin (IL)-1β and/or inducing pyroptotic cell death in response to tissue damage. We, therefore, aimed to address activation of NLRP3 inflammasome by BthTX-I-associated injury and the mechanism involved in this process. Intramuscular injection of BthTX-I results in infiltration of neutrophils and macrophages in gastrocnemius muscle, which is reduced in NLRP3- and Caspase-1-deficient mice. The in vitro IL-1β production induced by BthTX-I in peritoneal macrophages (PMs) requires caspase 1/11, ASC and NLRP3 and is dependent on adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP)-induced K+ efflux and P2X7 receptor (P2X7R). BthTX-I induces a dramatic release of ATP from C2C12 myotubes, therefore representing the major mechanism for P2X7R-dependent inflammasome activation in macrophages. A similar result was obtained when human monocyte-derived macrophages (HMDMs) were treated with BthTX-I. These findings demonstrated the inflammatory effect of BthTX-I on muscle tissue, pointing out a role for the ATP released by damaged cells for the NLRP3 activation on macrophages, contributing to the understanding of the microenvironment of the tissue damage of the Bothrops envenomation.
Abelson kinase (c-Abl) is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase involved in several biological processes essential for cell differentiation, migration, proliferation, and survival. This enzyme's activation ...might be an alternative strategy for treating diseases such as neutropenia induced by chemotherapy, prostate, and breast cancer. Recently, a series of compounds that promote the activation of c-Abl has been identified, opening a promising ground for c-Abl drug development. Structure-based drug design (SBDD) and ligand-based drug design (LBDD) methodologies have significantly impacted recent drug development initiatives. Here, we combined SBDD and LBDD approaches to characterize critical chemical properties and interactions of identified c-Abl's activators. We used molecular docking simulations combined with tree-based machine learning models—decision tree, AdaBoost, and random forest to understand the c-Abl activators' structural features required for binding to myristoyl pocket, and consequently, to promote enzyme and cellular activation. We obtained predictive and robust models with Matthews correlation coefficient values higher than 0.4 for all endpoints and identified characteristics that led to constructing a structure–activity relationship model (SAR).
Graphic abstract
The hand trajectory of motion during the performance of one-dimensional point-to-point movements has been shown to be marked by motor primitives with a bell-shaped velocity profile. Researchers have ...investigated if motor primitives with the same shape mark also complex upper-limb movements. They have done so by analyzing the magnitude of the hand trajectory velocity vector. This approach has failed to identify motor primitives with a bell-shaped velocity profile as the basic elements underlying the generation of complex upper-limb movements. In this study, we examined upper-limb movements by analyzing instead the movement components defined according to a Cartesian coordinate system with axes oriented in the medio-lateral, antero-posterior, and vertical directions. To our surprise, we found out that a broad set of complex upper-limb movements can be modeled as a combination of motor primitives with a bell-shaped velocity profile defined according to the axes of the above-defined coordinate system. Most notably, we discovered that these motor primitives scale with the size of movement according to a power law. These results provide a novel key to the interpretation of brain and muscle synergy studies suggesting that human subjects use a scale-invariant encoding of movement patterns when performing upper-limb movements.
Summary Background Definition of small for gestational age in various populations worldwide remains a challenge. References based on birthweight are deficient for preterm births, those derived from ...ultrasound estimates might not be applicable to all populations, and the individualised reference can be too complex to use in developing countries. Our aim was to create a generic reference for fetal weight and birthweight that overcame these deficiencies and could be readily adapted to local populations. Methods We used the fetal-weight reference developed by Hadlock and colleagues and the notion of proportionality proposed by Gardosi and colleagues and made the weight reference easily adjustable according to the mean birthweight at 40 weeks of gestation for any local population. For application and validation, we used data from 24 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia that participated in the 2004–08 WHO Global Survey on Maternal and Perinatal Health (237 025 births). We compared our reference with that of Hadlock and colleagues (non-customised) and with that of Gardosi and colleagues (individualised). For every reference, the odds ratio (OR) of adverse perinatal outcomes (stillbirths, neonatal deaths, referral to higher-level or special care unit, or Apgar score lower than 7 at 5 min) for infants who were small for gestational age versus those who were not was estimated with multilevel logistic regression. Findings OR of adverse outcomes for infants small for gestational age versus those not small for gestational age was 1·59 (95% CI 1·53–1·66) for the non-customised fetal-weight reference compared with 2·87 (2·73–3·01) for our country-specific reference, and 2·84 (2·71–2·99) for the fully individualised reference. Interpretation Our generic reference for fetal-weight and birthweight percentiles can be easily adapted to local populations. It has a better ability to predict adverse perinatal outcomes than has the non-customised fetal-weight reference, and is simpler to use than the individualised reference without loss of predictive ability. Funding None.
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