Extraction and characterization of lignins from cashew apple bagasse obtained by different treatments

Lignins were extracted from different hydrolysates from the cashew apple bagasse (CAB). The hydrolysates, in turn, were obtained by pretreating the CAB with diluted acid (DA), acid/alkali (AA) and alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP). Lignin removal levels with AA and AHP were of 98.0% and 96.9%, resulting in high extraction yields and highly thermostable lignins. The lowest lignin yield was observed with the acid-only pretreatment. The FT-IR results showed that there was no significant difference between the main structures of the lignin isolated from the DA and AHP pretreatments, when compared to sugarcane lignin (SCL), the only exception being the lignin from AA. An 1H–13C HSQC NMR analysis demonstrated that AA pretreatment reduced the syringyl (S) and hydroxyphenyl (H) units, but increased the condensed guaiacyl (G) units, which may contribute to the higher thermal stability of the isolated lignins and to the absence of attached residues of carbohydrates. The detailed structural properties of the lignins extracted from CAB will enable the efficient utilization of these macromolecules within the biorefinery concept, with a positive impact on the economy

Geodiversity assessment of the Xingu drainage basin

Artigo com mapa em anexoGeodiversity is a recent concept that refers to the abiotic variety of nature. It is defined as the range of geological (rocks, minerals, fossils), geomorphological (landforms, processes) and soil features, including their assemblages, relationships, properties, interpretation and systems. In this work, a method of quantitative assessment of geodiversity was applied to the Xingu drainage basin (Amazoˆnia – Brazil). The method is based on the quantification and integration of abiotic features represented on thematic maps at scales ranging from 1:250,000 to 1:2,500,000, overlaid by a 1:25,000 systematic grid. In order to calculate the final geodiversity index, five partial numerical indices representing the main components of geodiversity were drawn compiled: geology, geomorphology, soil, palaeontology and mineral occurrences. The resulting Geodiversity Index map is presented in the form of five isoline classes. The objective of this method is to present such a mapping technique as a tool for environmental planning, particularly for the identification and definition of priority areas for conservation.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)CAPE

Quantum quenches from integrability: the fermionic pairing model

Understanding the non-equilibrium dynamics of extended quantum systems after the trigger of a sudden, global perturbation (quench) represents a daunting challenge, especially in the presence of interactions. The main difficulties stem from both the vanishing time scale of the quench event, which can thus create arbitrarily high energy modes, and its non-local nature, which curtails the utility of local excitation bases. We here show that nonperturbative methods based on integrability can prove sufficiently powerful to completely characterize quantum quenches: we illustrate this using a model of fermions with pairing interactions (Richardson's model). The effects of simple (and multiple) quenches on the dynamics of various important observables are discussed. Many of the features we find are expected to be universal to all kinds of quench situations in atomic physics and condensed matter.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

People detection in nuclear plants by video processing for safety purpose

This work describes the development of a surveillance system for safety purposes in nuclear plants. The final objective is to track people online in videos, in order to estimate the dose received by personnel, during the execution of working tasks in nuclear plants. The estimation will be based on their tracked positions and on dose rate mapping in a real nuclear plant at Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear, Argonauta nuclear research reactor. Cameras have been installed within Argonauta’s room, supplying the data needed. Both video processing and statistical signal processing techniques may be used for detection, segmentation and tracking people in video. This first paper reports people segmentation in video using background subtraction, by two different approaches, namely frame differences, and blind signal separation based on the independent component analysis method. Results are commented, along with perspectives for further work

Efeito da pré-embebição das sementes e do substrato na germinação e no desenvolvimento inicial do maracujazeiro-doce.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito da pré-embebição das sementes em água e do tipo de substrato na germinação e no desenvolvimento inicial do maracujazeiro-doce (P. alata Curtis). O trabalho foi realizado no Departamento de Fitotecnia, da Universidade Federal de Viçosa (MG). As sementes foram extraídas de frutos maduros, e somente uma porção foi embebida em água destilada, durante 24 horas. Posteriormente, no interior da casa de vegetação, as sementes foram semeadas em caixas plásticas, utilizando-se quatro substratos (areia; Plantmax?; torta de filtro e a mistura Plantmax + areia + torta de filtro (1:1:1 v/v). Foi utilizado o delineamento experimental em blocos casualizados, num fatorial 2 x 4 (pré-embebição x substrato), com quatro repetições, considerando como unidade experimental cada 50 sementes. Aos 33 dias após a semeadura, foram analisados: porcentagem de germinação e de sobrevivência das plântulas; número de folhas; comprimento total e comprimento de raiz das plântulas; índice de velocidade de emergência; e massa da matéria seca total das plântulas. Concluiu-se que a embebição das sementes em água não interferiu na germinação do maracujazeiro-doce. Em geral, obtiveram-se os maiores resultados nas variáveis analisadas quando se utilizou o substrato comercial Plantmax, sendo seu uso recomendado para formação de plântulas de maracujazeiro-doce

Aquaporin 5 Interacts with Fluoride and Possibly Protects Against Caries

Aquaporins (AQP) are water channel proteins and the genes coding for AQP2, AQP5, and AQP6 are clustered in 12q13. Since AQP5 is expressed in serous acinar cells of salivary glands, we investigated its involvement in caries. DNA samples from 1,383 individuals from six groups were studied. Genotypes of eight single nucleotide polymorphisms covering the aquaporin locus were tested for association with caries experience. Interaction with genes involved in enamel formation was tested. The association between enamel microhardness at baseline, after creation of artificial caries lesion, and after exposure to fluoride and the genetic markers in AQP5 was tested. Finally, AQP5 expression in human whole saliva, after exposure to fluoride in a mammary gland cell line, which is known to express AQP5, and in Wistar rats was also verified. Nominal associations were found between caries experience and markers in the AQP5 locus. Since these associations suggested that AQP5 may be inhibited by levels of fluoride in the drinking water that cause fluorosis, we showed that fluoride levels above optimal levels change AQP5 expression in humans, cell lines, and rats. We have shown that AQP5 is involved in the pathogenesis of caries and likely interact with fluoride.Fil: Anjomshoaa, Ida. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Briseño Ruiz, Jessica. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Deeley, Kathleen. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Poletta, Fernando Adrián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. CEMIC-CONICET. Centro de Educaciones Médicas e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno". CEMIC-CONICET.; ArgentinaFil: Mereb, Juan C.. Provincia de Río Negro. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital de Área El Bolsón ; ArgentinaFil: Leite, Aline L.. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Barreta, Priscila A. T.. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Silva, Thelma L.. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Dizak, Piper. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Ruff, Timothy. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Patir, Asli. İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Koruyucu, Mine. İstanbul Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Abbasoğlu, Zerrin. Yeditepe Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Casado, Priscila L.. Universidade Federal Fluminense; BrasilFil: Brown, Andrew. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Zaky, Samer H.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Bayram, Merve. İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Küchler, Erika C.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Cooper, Margaret E.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Liu, Kai. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Marazita, Mary L.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Tanboğa, İlknur. Marmara Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Granjeiro, José M.. Universidade Federal Fluminense; Brasil. Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Qualidade e Tecnologia; BrasilFil: Seymen, Figen. İstanbul Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Castilla, Eduardo Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. CEMIC-CONICET. Centro de Educaciones Médicas e Investigaciones Clínicas "Norberto Quirno". CEMIC-CONICET.; Argentina. Fundación Oswaldo Cruz; BrasilFil: Orioli, Iêda M.. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Sfeir, Charles. University of Pittsburgh; Estados UnidosFil: Owyang, Hongjiao. Marmara Üniversitesi; TurquíaFil: Rabelo Buzalaf, Marilia Afonso. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Vieira, Alexandre R.. University of Pittsburgh; Estados Unido

Monozygotic twins concordant for common variable immunodeficiency : strikingly similar clinical and immune profile associated with a polygenic burden

Copyright © 2019 Silva, Fonseca, Pereira, Silva, Barbosa, Serra-Caetano, Blanco, Rosmaninho, Pérez-Andrés, Sousa, Raposo, Gama-Carvalho, Victorino, Hammarstrom and Sousa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Monozygotic twins provide a unique opportunity to better understand complex genetic diseases and the relative contribution of heritable factors in shaping the immune system throughout life. Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorders (CVID) are primary antibody defects displaying wide phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity, with monogenic transmission accounting for only a minority of the cases. Here, we report a pair of monozygotic twins concordant for CVID without a family history of primary immunodeficiency. They featured a remarkably similar profile of clinical manifestations and immunological alterations at diagnosis (established at age 37) and along the subsequent 15 years of follow-up. Interestingly, whole-exome sequencing failed to identify a monogenic cause for CVID, but unraveled a combination of heterozygous variants, with a predicted deleterious impact. These variants were found in genes involved in relevant immunological pathways, such as JUN, PTPRC, TLR1, ICAM1, and JAK3. The potential for combinatorial effects translating into the observed disease phenotype is inferred from their roles in immune pathways, namely in T and B cell activation. The combination of these genetic variants is also likely to impose a significant constraint on environmental influences, resulting in a similar immunological phenotype in both twins, despite exposure to different living conditions. Overall, these cases stress the importance of integrating NGS data with clinical and immunological phenotypes at the single-cell level, as provided by multi-dimensional flow-cytometry, in order to understand the complex genetic landscape underlying the vast majority of patients with CVID, as well as those with other immunodeficiencies.This work received funding from PAC - PRECISE - LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-016394, co-funded by FEDER through POR Lisboa 2020 - Programa Operacional Regional de Lisboa PORTUGAL 2020 and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; and UID/BIM/50005/2019, project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (MCTES) through Fundos do Orçamento de Estado. Work in MG-C lab is supported by UID/MULTI/04046/2019 Research Unit grant from FCT, Portugal (to BioISI) and FCT research grant PTDC/BIA-CEL/29257/2017.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Processo de priorização de pragas quarentenárias ausentes: hierarquia, critérios e lista final.

Foi solicitado aos especialistas que indicassem critérios que pudessem ser relevantes para determinação da importância e prioridade de uma PQA. Avaliaram-se os critérios em busca de similitudes, sombreamentos e duplicatas.Na publicação: Francisco Ferraz Laranjeira

Predicting progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia using neuropsychological data: a supervised learning approach using time windows

Background: Predicting progression from a stage of Mild Cognitive Impairment to dementia is a major pursuit in current research. It is broadly accepted that cognition declines with a continuum between MCI and dementia. As such, cohorts of MCI patients are usually heterogeneous, containing patients at different stages of the neurodegenerative process. This hampers the prognostic task. Nevertheless, when learning prognostic models, most studies use the entire cohort of MCI patients regardless of their disease stages. In this paper, we propose a Time Windows approach to predict conversion to dementia, learning with patients stratified using time windows, thus fine-tuning the prognosis regarding the time to conversion. Methods: In the proposed Time Windows approach, we grouped patients based on the clinical information of whether they converted (converter MCI) or remained MCI (stable MCI) within a specific time window. We tested time windows of 2, 3, 4 and 5 years. We developed a prognostic model for each time window using clinical and neuropsychological data and compared this approach with the commonly used in the literature, where all patients are used to learn the models, named as First Last approach. This enables to move from the traditional question "Will a MCI patient convert to dementia somewhere in the future" to the question "Will a MCI patient convert to dementia in a specific time window". Results: The proposed Time Windows approach outperformed the First Last approach. The results showed that we can predict conversion to dementia as early as 5 years before the event with an AUC of 0.88 in the cross-validation set and 0.76 in an independent validation set. Conclusions: Prognostic models using time windows have higher performance when predicting progression from MCI to dementia, when compared to the prognostic approach commonly used in the literature. Furthermore, the proposed Time Windows approach is more relevant from a clinical point of view, predicting conversion within a temporal interval rather than sometime in the future and allowing clinicians to timely adjust treatments and clinical appointments.FCT under the Neuroclinomics2 project [PTDC/EEI-SII/1937/2014, SFRH/BD/95846/2013]; INESC-ID plurianual [UID/CEC/50021/2013]; LASIGE Research Unit [UID/CEC/00408/2013

Measurement of an excess in the yield of J/ψ\psi at very low pTp_{\rm T} in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

We report on the first measurement of an excess in the yield of J/$\psi$ at very low transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}< 0.3$ GeV/$c$) in peripheral hadronic Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV, performed by ALICE at the CERN LHC. Remarkably, the measured nuclear modification factor of J/$\psi$ in the rapidity range $2.5<y<4$ reaches about 7 (2) in the $p_{\rm T}$ range 0-0.3 GeV/$c$ in the 70-90% (50-70%) centrality class. The J/$\psi$ production cross section associated with the observed excess is obtained under the hypothesis that coherent photoproduction of J/$\psi$ is the underlying physics mechanism. If confirmed, the observation of J/$\psi$ coherent photoproduction in Pb-Pb collisions at impact parameters smaller than twice the nuclear radius opens new theoretical and experimental challenges and opportunities. In particular, coherent photoproduction accompanying hadronic collisions may provide insight into the dynamics of photoproduction and nuclear reactions, as well as become a novel probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma.Comment: 18 pages, 3 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 13, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/191