PDAM: automatizando o processo de planejamento de atividades agrícolas municipais.

As ações governamentais na agricultura vem sendo descentralizadas de forma crescente nos anos 90, fazendo com que estados e municípios assumam funções mais ativas no processo de desenvolvimento agrícola. Uma dificuldade que tem sido observada é a falta de informações sistematizadas para atividades de planejamento, execução e acompanhamento das ações programadas para a agricultura municipal. O PDAM - Sistema de Suporte à Elaboração do Plano Diretor Agrícola Municipal visa suprir essa necessidade.bitstream/item/76664/1/CNPTIA-COM.TEC.-13-01.pd

An intelligent multi-agent memory assistant

World population is ageing and increasingly scarce resources are required to cover the needs of everyone adequately. Medical conditions, especially memory problems, restrict the daily life of a broad slice of the elderly population, affect their independence. To prevent this, providing the right care and assistance while having in mind the costs implicated is essential. One possible path is to work with resources that we already have today and create innovative solutions to achieve the required level of support. There are not many solution either technological or not to prevent memory loss. In this work we present a possible solution aimed at restoring or maintaining the independence of elderly people, through the use of so-called Memory Assistants. We thus present an Intelligent Multi-Agent Memory Assistant designed to help people with memory problems remember their events and activities. The implementation of an event manager, free time manger, medication remainder and a sensory system, to manage and monitor the user, we aim to improve their quality of life and increase their independence

Corneal Sub‐Basal Nerve Plexus Assessment and its Association with Phenotypic Features and Lymphocyte Subsets in Sjögren's Syndrome

Purpose: To assess and compare corneal sub-basal nerve plexus morphology with circulating lymphocyte subsets, immunologic status and disease activity in Sjögren syndrome (SjS) patients. Methods: Fifty-five SjS patients, 63 Sicca patients (not fulfilling SjS criteria), 18 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and 20 healthy controls (HC) were included. Systemic disease activity in SjS was assessed with the ESSDAI score. Lymphocyte subpopulations were studied with flow cytometry. Corneal confocal microscopy and ImageJ software were used to characterize corneal sub-basal nerve plexus in terms of nerve density (CNFD), length (CNFL) and tortuosity (CNFT). Conventional dry eye tests were also performed. Results: CNFL and CNFD were lower in SjS, Sicca and RA groups, compared to HC (p < 0.001 for both SjS and Sicca); CNFL p = 0.005, CNFD p = 0.018 in RA). CNFT was higher in SjS, followed by Sicca, RA and HC. A negative correlation was found between ESSDAI score and CNFL (r=-0.735, p = 0.012). CNFL correlated negatively with IL21+ CD8+ T cells (r=-0.279, p = 0.039) and a positively with total memory (r = 0.299, p = 0.027), unswitched memory (r = 0.281, p = 0.038) and CD24Hi CD27+ (r = 0.278, p = 0.040) B cells. CNFD showed a tendency to significance in its negative correlation with ESSDAI (r=-0.592, p = 0.071) and in its positive correlation with switched memory B cells (r = 0.644, p = 0.068). Conclusions: This is the first study aiming to correlate ocular findings with lymphocyte subsets in SjS. The associations founded between CNFL and CNFD and disease activity, IL21+ follicular T cells and some B-cell subsets suggest that corneal nerve damage may parallel systemic disease activity and inflammatory cells' dynamics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Guarana (Paullinia cupana var. sorbilis), an anciently consumed stimulant from the Amazon rain forest: the seeded-fruit transcriptome.

Guarana (Paullinia cupana var. sorbilis) is a plant native to the central Amazon basin. Roasted seed extracts have been used as medicinal beverages since pre-Colombian times, due to their reputation as stimulants, aphrodisiacs, tonics, as well as protectors of the gastrointestinal tract. Guarana plants are commercially cultivated exclusively in Brazil to supply the national carbonated soft-drink industry and natural product stores around the world. In this report, we describe and discuss the annotation of 15,387 ESTs from guarana seeded-fruits, highlighting sequences from the flavonoid and purine alkaloid pathways, and those related to biotic stress avoidance. This is the largest set of sequences registered for the Sapindaceae family

Produção de polibenzoxazina a partir da lignina do bagaço da cana-de-açúcar.

Este Comunicado Técnico visa apresentar um processo para produção de uma resina benzoxazina, em escala de laboratório, a partir da lignina extraída do bagaço da cana-de-açúcar.bitstream/item/206830/1/CT-261.pd

Promoter methylation and large intragenic rearrangements of DPYD are not implicated in severe toxicity to 5-fluorouracil-based chemotherapy in gastrointestinal cancer patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Severe toxicity to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) based chemotherapy in gastrointestinal cancer has been associated with constitutional genetic alterations of the dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase gene (<it>DPYD</it>).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this study, we evaluated <it>DPYD </it>promoter methylation through quantitative methylation-specific PCR and screened <it>DPYD </it>for large intragenic rearrangements in peripheral blood from 45 patients with gastrointestinal cancers who developed severe 5-FU toxicity. <it>DPYD </it>promoter methylation was also assessed in tumor tissue from 29 patients</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two cases with the IVS14+1G > A exon 14 skipping mutation (c.1905+1G > A), and one case carrying the 1845 G > T missense mutation (c.1845G > T) in the DPYD gene were identified. However, <it>DPYD </it>promoter methylation and large <it>DPYD </it>intragenic rearrangements were absent in all cases analyzed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results indicate that <it>DPYD </it>promoter methylation and large intragenic rearrangements do not contribute significantly to the development of 5-FU severe toxicity in gastrointestinal cancer patients, supporting the need for additional studies on the mechanisms underlying genetic susceptibility to severe 5-FU toxicity.</p