Methods for in vitro evaluating antimicrobial activity of medicinal plants : the need for standardization.

A crescente incid?ncia de pat?genos resistentes aos medicamentos atuais incentiva a busca de novos agentes antimicrobianos. Neste contexto, as plantas medicinais se destacam, sendo uma importante fonte de novos f?rmacos. Existem diversos m?todos para avaliar a atividade antibacteriana e antif?ngica de extratos, fra??es, ?leos essenciais e subst?ncias isoladas de vegetais. Os mais conhecidos incluem m?todos de difus?o, dilui??o e bioautografia. A proposta desse trabalho ? apresentar os m?todos mais utilizados atualmente, juntamente com suas vantagens, desvantagens e fatores interferentes. Entre os artigos indexados na biblioteca SciELO, abrangendo os ?ltimos dez anos, somente 4,4% das pesquisas com plantas medicinais est?o relacionadas com atividade antimicrobiana. O m?todo mais utilizado foi a microdilui??o (57,9%), o mais recomendado devido ? alta sensibilidade, ? quantidade m?nima de reagentes e amostra e ? possibilidade de um maior n?mero de r?plicas. Nos trabalhos que utilizaram esse m?todo, foram verificadas diverg?ncias de fatores que podem interferir nos resultados. A fim de facilitar a obten??o de resultados compar?veis e reprodut?veis, destaca-se a necessidade da padroniza??o dos m?todos utilizadas pelos pesquisadores. Recomenda-se utilizar como refer?ncia as normas estabelecidas pelo CLSI para meio de cultura e concentra??o de in?culo nos testes. Al?m disso, tamb?m recomenda-se a inclus?o de um controle negativo da forma de solubiliza??o das amostras, com quantifica??o do crescimento microbiano, para evitar a interfer?ncia nos resultados.The increasing incidence of resistant pathogens to current drugs encourages the search for new antimicrobial agents. In this context, medicinal plants are an important source of new drugs. There are several methods for evaluating the antibacterial and antifungal activity of extracts, fractions, essential oils and isolated substances from the plant. The most known include diffusion, dilution and bioautography methods. The purpose of this paper is to present the most used methods currently, along with their advantages, disadvantages and interfering factors. Among the works available in the SciELO database, covering the last ten years, only 4,4% of research on medicinal plants are related to the antimicrobial activity. The most used method is microdilution (57,9%), the best recommended due to high sensitivity, the minimum quantity of reagents and sample and the possibility of a more significant number of replicates. In articles that used this method, differences were observed in factors that may affect the results. Thereby, there is the need for standardization of methods used by researchers to facilitate obtaining comparable and reproducible results. To achieve comparable and reproducible results, there is the need to standardize the methods used by the researchers. It is recommended to use as reference the standards established by CLSI for culture medium and inoculum concentration in the tests. It also recommended the inclusion of negative control of the solubilization of the samples with quantification of microbial growth to avoid interference with the results

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tuberculose pulmonar: perfil epidemiológico do sertão Pernambucano, Brasil / Pulmonary tuberculosis: epidemiological profile of sertão Pernambucano, Brazil

Atualmente, observa-se que a tuberculose pulmonar constitui um importante problema de Saúde Pública no mundo, uma vez que esse agravo apresentou, em 2015, 10,4 milhões de casos, dos quais, mais de um milhão de pessoas vieram a óbito. Sob essa perspectiva, o presente artigo tem como objetivo traçar um perfil epidemiológico dos casos de Tuberculose Pulmonar notificados no município de Serra Talhada, entre os anos de 2007 a 2017. Foi realizado um estudo de série histórica observacional do tipo transversal, no intervalo de tempo de 2007 a 2017.  No período investigado o número de casos de tuberculose pulmonar foi de 246 casos, o local que teve a maior prevalência foi Serra Talhada, 287 por 100 mil habitantes. Diante dos dados apresentados, é imprescindível concluir, portanto, que esse estudo corrobora o perfil epidemiológico brasileiro para a Tuberculose Pulmonar, o qual indica variabilidade nos índices de acometimento durante o período analisado

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Métodos para avaliação in vitro da atividade antimicrobiana de plantas medicinais: a necessidade da padronização

A crescente incidência de patógenos resistentes aos medicamentos atuais incentiva a busca de novos agentes antimicrobianos. Neste contexto, as plantas medicinais se destacam, sendo uma importante fonte de novos fármacos. Existem diversos métodos para avaliar a atividade antibacteriana e antifúngica de extratos, frações, óleos essenciais e substâncias isoladas de vegetais. Os mais conhecidos incluem métodos de difusão, diluição e bioautografia. A proposta desse trabalho é apresentar os métodos mais utilizados atualmente, juntamente com suas vantagens, desvantagens e fatores interferentes. Entre os artigos indexados na biblioteca SciELO, abrangendo os últimos dez anos, somente 4,4% das pesquisas com plantas medicinais estão relacionadas com atividade antimicrobiana. O método mais utilizado foi a microdiluição (57,9%), o mais recomendado devido à alta sensibilidade, à quantidade mínima de reagentes e amostra e à possibilidade de um maior número de réplicas. Nos trabalhos que utilizaram esse método, foram verificadas divergências de fatores que podem interferir nos resultados. A fim de facilitar a obtenção de resultados comparáveis e reprodutíveis, se faz necessária a padronização dos métodos utilizados pelos pesquisadores. Recomenda-se utilizar como A crescente incidência de patógenos resistentes aos medicamentos atuais incentiva a busca de novos agentes antimicrobianos. Neste contexto, as plantas medicinais se destacam, sendo uma importante fonte de novos fármacos. Existem diversos métodos para avaliar a atividade antibacteriana e antifúngica de extratos, frações, óleos essenciais e substâncias isoladas de vegetais. Os mais conhecidos incluem métodos de difusão, diluição e bioautografia. A proposta desse trabalho é apresentar os métodos mais utilizados atualmente, juntamente com suas vantagens, desvantagens e fatores interferentes. Entre os artigos indexados na biblioteca SciELO, abrangendo os últimos dez anos, somente 4,4% das pesquisas com plantas medicinais estão relacionadas com atividade antimicrobiana. O método mais utilizado foi a microdiluição (57,9%), o mais recomendado devido à alta sensibilidade, à quantidade mínima de reagentes e amostra e à possibilidade de um maior número de réplicas. Nos trabalhos que utilizaram esse método, foram verificadas divergências de fatores que podem interferir nos resultados. A fim de facilitar a obtenção de resultados comparáveis e reprodutíveis, se faz necessária a padronização dos métodos utilizados pelos pesquisadores. Recomenda-se utilizar comoreferência as normas estabelecidas pelo CLSI para meio de cultura e concentração de inóculo nos testes. Além disso, também se recomenda a inclusão de um controle negativo da forma de solubilização das amostras, com quantificação do crescimento microbiano, para evitar a interferência nos resultados

Anxiety and performance of nursing students in regard to assessment via clinical simulations in the classroom versus filmed assessments

Objective. To compare the level of anxiety and performance of nursing students when performing a clinical simulation through the traditional method of assessment with the presence of an evaluator and through a filmed assessment without the presence of an evaluator. Method. Controlled trial with the participation of Brazilian public university 20 students who were randomly assigned to one of two groups: a) assessment through the traditional method with the presence of an evaluator; or b) filmed assessment. The level of anxiety was assessed using the Zung test and performance was measured based on the number of correct answers. Results. Averages of 32 and 27 were obtained on the anxiety scale by the group assessed through the traditional method before and after the simulation, respectively, while the filmed group obtained averages of 33 and 26; the final scores correspond to mild anxiety. Even though there was a statistically significant reduction in the intra-groups scores before and after the simulation, there was no difference between the groups. As for the performance assessments in the clinical simulation, the groups obtained similar percentages of correct answers (83% in the traditional assessment and 84% in the filmed assessment) without statistically significant differences. Conclusion. Filming can be used and encouraged as a strategy to assess nursing undergraduate students

ATLANTIC BIRD TRAITS: a data set of bird morphological traits from the Atlantic forests of South America

Scientists have long been trying to understand why the Neotropical region holds the highest diversity of birds on Earth. Recently, there has been increased interest in morphological variation between and within species, and in how climate, topography, and anthropogenic pressures may explain and affect phenotypic variation. Because morphological data are not always available for many species at the local or regional scale, we are limited in our understanding of intra- and interspecies spatial morphological variation. Here, we present the ATLANTIC BIRD TRAITS, a data set that includes measurements of up to 44 morphological traits in 67,197 bird records from 2,790 populations distributed throughout the Atlantic forests of South America. This data set comprises information, compiled over two centuries (1820–2018), for 711 bird species, which represent 80% of all known bird diversity in the Atlantic Forest. Among the most commonly reported traits are sex (n = 65,717), age (n = 63,852), body mass (n = 58,768), flight molt presence (n = 44,941), molt presence (n = 44,847), body molt presence (n = 44,606), tail length (n = 43,005), reproductive stage (n = 42,588), bill length (n = 37,409), body length (n = 28,394), right wing length (n = 21,950), tarsus length (n = 20,342), and wing length (n = 18,071). The most frequently recorded species are Chiroxiphia caudata (n = 1,837), Turdus albicollis (n = 1,658), Trichothraupis melanops (n = 1,468), Turdus leucomelas (n = 1,436), and Basileuterus culicivorus (n = 1,384). The species recorded in the greatest number of sampling localities are Basileuterus culicivorus (n = 243), Trichothraupis melanops (n = 242), Chiroxiphia caudata (n = 210), Platyrinchus mystaceus (n = 208), and Turdus rufiventris (n = 191). ATLANTIC BIRD TRAITS (ABT) is the most comprehensive data set on measurements of bird morphological traits found in a biodiversity hotspot; it provides data for basic and applied research at multiple scales, from individual to community, and from the local to the macroecological perspectives. No copyright or proprietary restrictions are associated with the use of this data set. Please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications or teaching and educational activities. © 2019 The Authors. Ecology © 2019 The Ecological Society of Americ