Assessing heat tolerance of Alentejana and Mertolenga portuguese cattle breeds under influence of solar radiation

Abstract Objectives: During summer in Mediterranean regions, well adapted native cattle breeds present differences in environmental tolerance. The objective of this study was to compare heat tolerance of Alentejana and Mertolenga heifers under direct solar radiation, by quantifying the pathways of evaporative thermolysis and thermostability. Materials and Methods: The experiment was carried out in 5 days. 6 Alentejana and 6 Mertolenga heifers were kept under direct solar radiation, in individual stalls (3.0 —1.1 m) and restrained by head halted. Food, water and mineral mixture were available ad libitum. Respiratory frequencies (RF) were measured by observing costal movements, rectal temperatures (RT ) were measured using a digital thermometer (Digitron, with an 8-cm flexible probe) and thermal balance was calculated according to procedures described by Silva et al., (2010). These measurements were carried out every day at 06:00, 10:00, 13:00 16:00 and 20:00h. Heat storage (HS) was calculated as described by McGovern and Bruce (2000). Sweat rate was measured at 15:00 hours using methodology described by Pereira et. al. (2010). Variables were analyzed according to a general linear model procedure with 2 fixed factors (breed and hour) and 1 nested factor (animal within breed). Results: Except for the cases of RT and HS, in the other variables no significant differences between the breeds were found. Despite the absence of significant differences in the thermal balance between breeds, there was a slightly tendency for a bigger acquisition of heat in Alentejana and a faster recovery in the Mertolenga after 16:00h. The sweating rates were not significantly different, with mean values of 271.5 and 286.3 (g.m-2.h-1) respectively for the Alentejana and Mertolenga. Respiratory frequencies were virtually equal between breeds. In RT there were significant differences between breeds. The Mertolenga has shown significantly lower RT at 16:00h and 20:00h, with 38,9ºC and 38,7ºC compared to 39,3ºC and 39,1ºC in Alentejana. The same trend was found in the HS at 16:00h and 20:00h with 0,018 and 0,016 W.m2 in Alentejana compared to 0,014 and 0,009 W.m2 in Mertolenga. Conclusions: The results show that both breeds present good heat tolerance. The sweating rate values of both breeds are very high and are quite similar to those found in tropical cattle breeds. However, Mertolenga shows slightly better thermal balance and evaporative heat loss (SR ans RF), which eventually may have contributed to the enhanced thermostability comparatively to Alentejana. The superior stability of the RT and particularly the lower HS suggest a higher heat tolerance of Mertolenga breed

Exceptional cause of bowel obstruction: rectal endometriosis mimicking carcinoma of Rectum - A case report

Endometriosis with intestinal serosal involvement is not uncommon in women of childbearing age. However, endometriosis presenting as colon obstruction is rare and occurs in less than 1% of cases. The Lack of pathognomonic signs makes the diagnosis difficult, mostly because the main differential diagnosis is with neoplasm, even during the intervention. Reported here is a case of a 35-year –old woman presenting with bowel obstruction due to rectal endometriosis. The patient presented signs and symptoms of bowel obstruction. Colonoscopy and radiological findings were suggestive of rectal carcinoma. Surgeons performed an anterior resection with right salpingectomy. Histopathology diagnosed bowel endometriosis. This case demonstrates the difficulty of establishing an accurate pre- and intra-operative diagnosis and the ability of intestinal endometriosis to mimic colon cancer

Proliferative and apoptotic pathways in the testis of quail coturnix coturnix during the seasonal reproductive cycle

The quail Coturnix coturnix is a seasonal breeding species, with the annual reproductive cycle of its testes comprising an activation phase and a regression phase. Our previous results have proven that the testicular levels of both 17β‐estradiol (E2) and androgens are higher during the reproductive period compared to the non‐reproductive period, which led us to hypothesize that estrogens and androgens may act synergistically to initiate spermatogenesis. The present study was, therefore, aimed to investigate the estrogen responsive system in quail testis in relation to the reproduction seasonality, with a focus on the molecular pathways elicited in both active and regressive quail testes. Western blotting and immunohistochemistry analysis revealed that the expression of ERα, which is the predominant form of estrogen receptors in quail testis, was correlated with E2 concentration, suggesting that increased levels of E2‐induced ERα could play a key role in the resumption of spermatogenesis during the reproductive period, when both PCNA and SYCP3, the mitotic and meiotic markers, respectively, were also increased. In the reproductive period we also found the activation of the ERK1/2 and Akt‐1 kinase pathways and an increase in second messengers cAMP and cGMP levels. In the non‐reproductive phase, when the E2/ERα levels were low, the inactivation of ERK1/2 and Akt‐1 pathways favored apoptotic events due to an increase in the levels of Bax and cytochrome C, with a consequent regression of the gonad

Adiponectin affects the mechanical responses in strips from the mouse gastric fundus

AIMTo investigate whether the adipocytes derived hormone adiponectin (ADPN) affects the mechanical responses in strips from the mouse gastric fundus.METHODSFor functional experiments, gastric strips from the fundal region were cut in the direction of the longitudinal muscle layer and placed in organ baths containing Krebs-Henseleit solution. Mechanical responses were recorded via force-displacement transducers, which were coupled to a polygraph for continuous recording of isometric tension. Electrical field stimulation (EFS) was applied via two platinum wire rings through which the preparation was threaded. The effects of ADPN were investigated on the neurally-induced contractile and relaxant responses elicited by EFS. The expression of ADPN receptors, Adipo-R1 and Adipo-R2, was also evaluated by touchdown-PCR analysis.RESULTSIn the functional experiments, EFS (4-16 Hz) elicited tetrodotoxin (TTX)-sensitive contractile responses. Addition of ADPN to the bath medium caused a reduction in amplitude of the neurally-induced contractile responses (P < 0.05). The effects of ADPN were no longer observed in the presence of the nitric oxide (NO) synthesis inhibitor L-N-G-nitro arginine (L-NNA) (P > 0.05). The direct smooth muscle response to methacholine was not influenced by ADPN (P > 0.05). In carbachol precontracted strips and in the presence of guanethidine, EFS induced relaxant responses. Addition of ADPN to the bath medium, other than causing a slight and progressive decay of the basal tension, increased the amplitude of the neurally-induced relaxant responses (P < 0.05). Touchdown-PCR analysis revealed the expression of both Adipo-R1 and Adipo-R2 in the gastric fundus.CONCLUSIONThe results indicate for the first time that ADPN is able to influence the mechanical responses in strips from the mouse gastric fundus

Bell correlation depth in many-body systems

We address the question of assessing the number of particles sharing genuinely nonlocal correlations in a multipartite system. While the interest in multipartite nonlocality has grown in recent years, its existence in large quantum systems is difficult to confirm experimentally. This is mostly due to the inadequacy of standard multipartite Bell inequalities to many-body systems: Such inequalities usually rely on expectation values involving many parties, usually all, and require individual addressing of each party. In addition, known Bell inequalities for genuine nonlocality are composed of a number of expectation values that scales exponentially with the number of observers, which makes such inequalities impractical from the experimental point of view. In a recent work [Tura et al., Science 344, 1256 (2014)], it was shown that it is possible to detect nonlocality in multipartite systems using Bell inequalities with only two-body correlators. This opened the way for the detection of Bell correlations with trusted collective measurements through Bell correlation witnesses [Schmied et al., Science 352, 441 (2016)]. These witnesses were recently tested experimentally in many-body systems such as Bose-Einstein condensate or thermal ensembles, hence demonstrating the presence of Bell correlations with assumptions on the statistics. Here, we address the problem of detecting nonlocality depth, a notion that quantifies the number of particles sharing nonlocal correlation in a multipartite system. We introduce a general framework allowing us to derive Bell-like inequalities for nonlocality depth from symmetric two-body correlators. We characterize all such Bell-like inequalities for a finite number of parties and we show that they reveal Bell correlation depth k <= 6 in arbitrarily large systems. We then show how Bell correlation depth can be estimated using quantities that are within reach in current experiments. On one hand, we use the standard multipartite Bell inequalities such the Mermin and Svetlichny ones to derive Bell correlations witnesses of any depth that involves only two collective measurements, one of which being the parity measurement. On the other hand, we show that our two-body Bell inequalities can be turned into witnesses of depth k <= 6 that require measuring total spin components in certain directions. Interestingly, such a witness is violated by existing data from an ensemble of 480 atoms

Preparation and verification of tensor network states

We consider a family of tensor network states defined on regular lattices that come with a natural definition of an adiabatic path to prepare them. This family comprises relevant classes of states, such as injective matrix product and projected entangled-pair states, and some corresponding to classical spin models. We show how uniform lower bounds to the gap of the parent Hamiltonian along the adiabatic trajectory can be efficiently computed using semidefinite programming. This allows one to check whether the adiabatic preparation can be performed efficiently with a scalable effort. We also derive a set of observables whose expectation values can be easily determined and that form a complete set, in the sense that they uniquely characterize the state. We identify a subset of those observables which can be efficiently computed if one has access to the quantum state and local measurements, and analyze how they can be used in verification procedures.Theoretical PhysicsQuantum Matter and OpticsQuantum optics and Quantum information - OU