Comparative study on myelotoxic and antineoplastic action of Synadenium umbellatum, Vitis vinifera and Resveratrol

Cancer is one of the pathologies that most challenge medicine, not only because of the complexity of its development, but also because of the difficulty of treatment that is not always effective. Due to the significant toxicity and adverse effects profile presented by the main chemotherapeutic agents used to treat neoplasm, there is a constant interest in the search for new drugs that may be a more effective alternative. Therefore, the search for new compounds of plant origin becomes an interesting tool for the discovery of drugs with antitumor activity. Synadenium umbellatum is a plant native to tropical Africa known as “cola-nota”, “hazel”, “cancerous”, “miraculous”, among others. The plant is used by the Brazilian population as having anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antineoplastic properties, among others. However, the literature is lacking on reports of the toxicity of Synadenium umbellatum macerate. Resveratrol is a polyphenolic compound found in different plant species, mainly in grape species (Vitis) and their seeds. Vitis vinifera is a species of grape easily found in several regions, also containing a high concentrations of phenolic compounds, including resveratrol in its fruits, leaves and seeds. Therefore, this study was aimed to evaluate the myelotoxicity of macerate, extract and resveratrol and their antitumor activity in Balb/c mice with Ehrlich tumor. The hematological evaluation was obtained by flow cytometry and the tumors were measured using a pachymeter and the tumor masses by means of weighing. No statistically significant difference was observed between results from the control group and the treatment groups. It was concluded that macerate, crude extract and resveratrol did not demonstrate a myelotoxic effect and did not cause a decrease in tumor mass1928086sem informaçã

Variação do teor de nitrogênio em ramos produtivos de caquizeiro.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a resposta do caquizeiro (Diospyros kaki L.) à adubação nitrogenada. O experimento foi conduzido em um pomar comercial no município de Faxinal, Estado do Paraná, nas coordenadas geográfcas S 23º 57' 35", W51º 13' 34", altitude de 999 metros. A cultivar estudada foi "Giombo". Utilizou-se de 9 tratamentos, sendo uma testemunha sem aplicação de nitrogênio (N), e os demais resultante das épocas de aplicação de N (Maturação fisiológica dos frutos, início de poda, final de florescimento e em 15-12-06), combinadas com duas doses de N (80 e 160 kg/ha). O delineamento experimental foi o de blocos casualizados e 4 repetições. A parcela experimental foi constituída de 3 plantas, sendo a planta central usada para avaliação. A cada quarenta e cinco dias após o início da adubação, foram retirados aleatoriamente de cada tratamento oito ramos produtivos em diferentes pontos da planta. Na folha, os tratamentos IP e MF apresentaram os maiores teores de N na primavera e no verão, e uma diminuição significativa na fase final do ciclo antes da senescência e queda. Na folha e no ramo, todos os tratamentos resultaram em teor de N semelhante no final do ciclo. A época de aplicação, início de poda, foi a época que demonstrou menor variação de N, independentemente da dose

Debris disk size distributions: steady state collisional evolution with P-R drag and other loss processes

We present a new scheme for determining the shape of the size distribution, and its evolution, for collisional cascades of planetesimals undergoing destructive collisions and loss processes like Poynting-Robertson drag. The scheme treats the steady state portion of the cascade by equating mass loss and gain in each size bin; the smallest particles are expected to reach steady state on their collision timescale, while larger particles retain their primordial distribution. For collision-dominated disks, steady state means that mass loss rates in logarithmic size bins are independent of size. This prescription reproduces the expected two phase size distribution, with ripples above the blow-out size, and above the transition to gravity-dominated planetesimal strength. The scheme also reproduces the expected evolution of disk mass, and of dust mass, but is computationally much faster than evolving distributions forward in time. For low-mass disks, P-R drag causes a turnover at small sizes to a size distribution that is set by the redistribution function (the mass distribution of fragments produced in collisions). Thus information about the redistribution function may be recovered by measuring the size distribution of particles undergoing loss by P-R drag, such as that traced by particles accreted onto Earth. Although cross-sectional area drops with 1/age^2 in the PR-dominated regime, dust mass falls as 1/age^2.8, underlining the importance of understanding which particle sizes contribute to an observation when considering how disk detectability evolves. Other loss processes are readily incorporated; we also discuss generalised power law loss rates, dynamical depletion, realistic radiation forces and stellar wind drag.Comment: Accepted for publication by Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy (special issue on EXOPLANETS

The ESA Hera Mission: Detailed Characterization of the DART Impact Outcome and of the Binary Asteroid (65803) Didymos

Hera is a planetary defense mission under development in the Space Safety and Security Program of the European Space Agency for launch in 2024 October. It will rendezvous in late 2026 December with the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos and in particular its moon, Dimorphos, which will be impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft on 2022 September 26 as the first asteroid deflection test. The main goals of Hera are the detailed characterization of the physical properties of Didymos and Dimorphos and of the crater made by the DART mission, as well as measurement of the momentum transfer efficiency resulting from DART’s impact. The data from the Hera spacecraft and its two CubeSats will also provide significant insights into asteroid science and the evolutionary history of our solar system. Hera will perform the first rendezvous with a binary asteroid and provide new measurements, such as radar sounding of an asteroid interior, which will allow models in planetary science to be tested. Hera will thus provide a crucial element in the global effort to avert future asteroid impacts at the same time as providing world-leading science

Design of analog front-ends for the RD53 demonstrator chip

The RD53 collaboration is developing a large scale pixel front-end chip, which will be a tool to evaluate the performance of 65 nm CMOS technology in view of its application to the readout of the innermost detector layers of ATLAS and CMS at the HL-LHC. Experimental results of the characterization of small prototypes will be discussed in the frame of the design work that is currently leading to the development of the large scale demonstrator chip RD53A to be submitted in early 2017. The paper is focused on the analog processors developed in the framework of the RD53 collaboration, including three time over threshold front-ends, designed by INFN Torino and Pavia, University of Bergamo and LBNL and a zero dead time front-end based on flash ADC designed by a joint collaboration between the Fermilab and INFN. The paper will also discuss the radiation tolerance features of the front-end channels, which were exposed to up to 800 Mrad of total ionizing dose to reproduce the system operation in the actual experiment

The Dimorphos ejecta plume properties revealed by LICIACube

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) had an impact with Dimorphos (a satellite of the asteroid Didymos) on 26 September 20221. Ground-based observations showed that the Didymos system brightened by a factor of 8.3 after the impact because of ejecta, returning to the pre-impact brightness 23.7 days afterwards2. Hubble Space Telescope observations made from 15 minutes after impact to 18.5 days after, with a spatial resolution of 2.1 kilometres per pixel, showed a complex evolution of the ejecta3, consistent with other asteroid impact events. The momentum enhancement factor, determined using the measured binary period change4, ranges between 2.2 and 4.9, depending on the assumptions about the mass and density of Dimorphos5. Here we report observations from the LUKE and LEIA instruments on the LICIACube cube satellite, which was deployed 15 days in advance of the impact of DART. Data were taken from 71 seconds before the impact until 320 seconds afterwards. The ejecta plume was a cone with an aperture angle of 140 ± 4 degrees. The inner region of the plume was blue, becoming redder with increasing distance from Dimorphos. The ejecta plume exhibited a complex and inhomogeneous structure, characterized by filaments, dust grains and single or clustered boulders. The ejecta velocities ranged from a few tens of metres per second to about 500 metres per second.This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the LICIACube project (ASI-INAF agreement AC no. 2019-31-HH.0) and by the DART mission, NASA contract 80MSFC20D0004. M.Z. acknowledges Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for granting the University of Bologna a licence to an executable version of MONTE Project Edition software. M.Z. is grateful to D. Lubey, M. Smith, D. Mages, C. Hollenberg and S. Bhaskaran of NASA/JPL for the discussions and suggestions regarding the operational navigation of LICIACube. G.P. acknowledges financial support from the Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES, France). A.C.B. acknowledges funding by the NEO-MAPP project (grant agreement 870377, EC H2020-SPACE-2019) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación (PGC 2018) RTI2018-099464-B-I00. F.F. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione (grant no. 193346). J.-Y.L. acknowledges the support from the NASA DART Participating Scientist Program (grant no. 80NSSC21K1131). S.D.R. and M.J. acknowledge support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (project no. 200021_207359)

FUEL-BASED POLLUTANTS REMOVAL FROM WATER: STRUCTURAL EVIDENCES OF ADSORPTION INTO HIGH SILICA ZEOLITES

The enormous and rapid development of the chemical and agrochemical industries during the last century has resulted in the release of a large number of chemical compounds into the environment. Aquatic ecosystems are especially vulnerable because water bodies are frequently used, directly or indirectly, as recipients of potentially toxic liquids and solids from domestic, agricultural and industrial wastes. Removal of fuel-based compounds from natural water is of considerable interest due to the harmful effects of these pollutants on the environment, even at very low concentration [1]. Among this category of compounds, toluene, 1,2-dichloethane and methyl-tert-buthyl-ether are of special relevance since are toxic and commonly found in natural water. Research on hydrocarbon removal has been mainly focussed on single components from air matrix, whereas the studies involving aqueous dilute solutions are few [2-5]. Adsorption is a reliable alternative to eliminate these organic compounds from wastewaters because of the flexibility of the system, low energy and cheap operation costs. Moreover, the process does not induce the formation of oxidation intermediates which are, to date, mostly unknown. The presence of natural organic matter can significantly affect organic pollutant adsorption by either competing for adsorption sites, or restricting access to (micro)pores. This work is a part of a wider project whose purpose is to study the interaction and mobility of ground water pollutants adsorbed in the zeolites pores. Organophilic synthetic zeolites which are cheap and available on the market, differing in topology, channel systems and free window apertures, and fuel-based-pollutants differing in chemical properties and molecular dimensions, were tested. In particular, structural evidences of adsorption from dilute solutions into organophilic zeolite as well as the competitive role of humic acid monomers, the effect of the temperature in the adsorption processes will be discussed. The selected adsorbents were commercial as-synthesized hydrophobic ZSM-5 and Y zeolites with high SiO2/Al2O3. Kinetics and adsorption isotherm batch data were obtained via Headspace Solid Phase Microextraction-GC. X-ray powders patterns were collected before and after adsorption on a Bruker D8 Advance diffractometer equipped with SOL-X detector. Thermal analyses (TG and DTA) were performed in air up to 900°C at 10°C/min. Infrared spectra were collected on a Thermo Electron Corporation FT Nicolet 5700 Spectrometer. This combined diffractometric, thermogravimetric, chromatographic and spectroscopic study allowed us to: 1) measure the sorption capacity of hydrophobic zeolite materials weighed against organic pollutants dissolved in water; 2) characterise the structure after contaminants adsorption; 3) localise the organic species in the zeolite channel systems; 4) highlight the role of humic acid monomers in the pollutants removal; 5) probe the interaction between the adsorbate and the zeolite framework. The very favorable adsorption kinetics along with the effective and highly irreversible adsorption into zeolite pores make these cheap and environmental friendly materials applicable for the treatment of water contaminated with fuel-based pollutants. References. [1] Trindade P.V.O., Sobral L.G. , Rizzo A.C.L., Leite S.G.F. (2005) Chemosphere, 58, 515–522; [2] L.Abu-Lail, J. A. Bergendahl, R. W. Thompson, Journal of Hazardous Materials 2010, 178, 363-369. [3] Martucci A., Pasti L., Nassi M., Alberti A., Arletti R., Bagatin R., Vignola R., Sticca, R. (2012) Micropor. Mesopor. Mater. 148, 174-183. [4] Arletti, R., Martucci, A., Alberti, A., Pasti, L., Nassi, M., Bagatin, R. (2012) Journal of Solid State Chemistry, 194, 135-142.[5] Pasti L., Martucci A., Nassi M., Cavazzini A., Alberti A., Bagatin, R. (2012) Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 160, 182-193