Physiological response and performance of tambaqui fed with diets supplemented with Amazonian nut

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of Amazonian nut (Bertholletia excelsa) as an alternative source of vegetal protein in tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) diet. Performance and physiological status of fish fed for 60 days were evaluated. Four experimental isonitrogenous diets with 36% crude protein were formulated with increasing levels of nut meal (0, 10, 20 and 30%). Results showed the same growth performance for fish fed with diet with different levels of Amazonian nut than that without this ingredient (control). Analysis of physiological parameters (hematocrit, erythrocyte number, hemoglobin concentration, hematimetric indexes, total plasma protein and plasma glucose) corroborate these results, with no significant differences among treatments. Therefore, adding up to 30% of Amazonian nut in tambaqui diet there is no negative effect on physiological homeostasis and growth performance, indicating that the Amazonian nut is a promising alternative dietary protein source ingredient for tambaqui

Self-assembled islands on strained systems: Control of formation, evolution, and spatial distribution

The dynamics of island formation on strained epitaxial films is investigated using the system formed by InAs on InP. Island shape, size, and spatial distribution are determined by surface atom diffusion that is modified by the presence of steps and/or corrugations on the surface. Different step characteristics-type and density-are shown to strongly affect the islanding process. By controlling the morphology of the underlying InP film we were able to achieve InAs/InP structures with periodic spatial distribution in one single step of growth.5719125011250

The Effectiveness of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and the Traditional Brazilian Diet in Reducing the Inflammatory Profile of Individuals with Severe Obesity: A Randomized Clinical Trial

We analyzed the effectiveness of two nutritional interventions alone and together, EVOO and the DieTBra, on the inflammatory profile of severely obese individuals. This study was an RCT with 149 individuals aged from 18 to 65 years, with a body mass index ≥ 35 kg/m2, randomized into three intervention groups: (1) 52 mL/day of EVOO (n = 50); (2) DieTBra (n = 49); and (3) DieTBra plus 52 mL/day of EVOO (DieTBra + EVOO, n = 50). The primary outcomes we measured were the-neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and the secondary outcomes we measured were the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR); leukocytes; and C reactive protein (CRP). After 12 weeks of intervention, DieTBra + EVOO significantly reduced the total leucocytes (p = 0.037) and LMR (p = 0.008). No statistically significant differences were found for the NLR in neither the intra-group and inter-group analyses, although a slight reduction was found in the DieTBra group (−0.22 ± 1.87). We observed reductions in the total leukocytes and LMR in the three groups, though without statistical difference between groups. In conclusion, nutritional intervention with DietBra + EVOO promotes a significant reduction in inflammatory biomarkers, namely leukocytes and LMR. CRP was reduced in EVOO and DieTBra groups and NLR reduced in the DieTBra group. This study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under NCT02463435

Vitamin D in women with class II/III obesity: Findings from the DieTBra trial

Objective: To assess the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and factors associated with serum vitamin D levels in adult women with class II/III obesity. Methods: We analysed baseline data from 128 adult women with class II/III obesity i.e. BMI ≥35 kg/m2 who participated in the DieTBra clinical trial. Sociodemographic, lifestyle, sun exposure, sunscreen, dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D, menopause, diseases, medication, and body composition data were analysed using multiple linear regression. Results: 128 women had mean BMI 45.53 ± 6.36, mean age 39.7 ± 8.75 kg/m2 and serum vitamin D 30.02 ng/ml ± 9.80. Vitamin D deficiency was 14.01%. There was no association between serum vitamin D levels and BMI, body fat percentage, total body fat and waist circumference. Age group (p = 0.004), sun exposure/day (p = 0.072), use of sunscreen (p = 0.168), inadequate calcium intake (p = 0.030), BMI (p = 0.192), menopause (p = 0.029) and lipid-lowering drugs (p = 0.150) were included in the multiple linear regression. The following remained associated with low serum vitamin D: being 40–49 years (p = 0.003); ≥50 years of age (p = 0.020) and inadequate calcium intake (p = 0.027). Conclusion: The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was lower than expected. Lifestyle, sun exposure and body composition were not associated. Age over 40 years and inadequate calcium intake were significantly associated with low serum vitamin D levels

On the optical properties of InAs/InP systems: The role of two-dimensional structures and three-dimensional islands

We investigate the effects of the interface morphology on the electronic properties of InAs/In systems using in-air atomic force microscopy and low temperature photoluminescence. Atomic force microscopy results show that the distribution of InAs strained film into three-dimensional islands and the two-dimensional wetting layer-typical of the Stranski-Krastanov growth mode-is strongly affected by the characteristics of the substrate and by the morphology of the InP buffer layer. The differences in the optical data are correlated to the different interface characteristics observed by atomic force microscopy. We discuss the origin of emission peaks taking into account the diffusion process of adsorbed atoms on the different types of surface. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.7291015101

MCL-CAw: A refinement of MCL for detecting yeast complexes from weighted PPI networks by incorporating core-attachment structure

Abstract Background The reconstruction of protein complexes from the physical interactome of organisms serves as a building block towards understanding the higher level organization of the cell. Over the past few years, several independent high-throughput experiments have helped to catalogue enormous amount of physical protein interaction data from organisms such as yeast. However, these individual datasets show lack of correlation with each other and also contain substantial number of false positives (noise). Over these years, several affinity scoring schemes have also been devised to improve the qualities of these datasets. Therefore, the challenge now is to detect meaningful as well as novel complexes from protein interaction (PPI) networks derived by combining datasets from multiple sources and by making use of these affinity scoring schemes. In the attempt towards tackling this challenge, the Markov Clustering algorithm (MCL) has proved to be a popular and reasonably successful method, mainly due to its scalability, robustness, and ability to work on scored (weighted) networks. However, MCL produces many noisy clusters, which either do not match known complexes or have additional proteins that reduce the accuracies of correctly predicted complexes. Results Inspired by recent experimental observations by Gavin and colleagues on the modularity structure in yeast complexes and the distinctive properties of "core" and "attachment" proteins, we develop a core-attachment based refinement method coupled to MCL for reconstruction of yeast complexes from scored (weighted) PPI networks. We combine physical interactions from two recent "pull-down" experiments to generate an unscored PPI network. We then score this network using available affinity scoring schemes to generate multiple scored PPI networks. The evaluation of our method (called MCL-CAw) on these networks shows that: (i) MCL-CAw derives larger number of yeast complexes and with better accuracies than MCL, particularly in the presence of natural noise; (ii) Affinity scoring can effectively reduce the impact of noise on MCL-CAw and thereby improve the quality (precision and recall) of its predicted complexes; (iii) MCL-CAw responds well to most available scoring schemes. We discuss several instances where MCL-CAw was successful in deriving meaningful complexes, and where it missed a few proteins or whole complexes due to affinity scoring of the networks. We compare MCL-CAw with several recent complex detection algorithms on unscored and scored networks, and assess the relative performance of the algorithms on these networks. Further, we study the impact of augmenting physical datasets with computationally inferred interactions for complex detection. Finally, we analyse the essentiality of proteins within predicted complexes to understand a possible correlation between protein essentiality and their ability to form complexes. Conclusions We demonstrate that core-attachment based refinement in MCL-CAw improves the predictions of MCL on yeast PPI networks. We show that affinity scoring improves the performance of MCL-CAw.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78256/1/1471-2105-11-504.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78256/2/1471-2105-11-504-S1.PDFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78256/3/1471-2105-11-504-S2.ZIPhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78256/4/1471-2105-11-504.pdfPeer Reviewe

Double shunt technique for hybrid palliation of hypoplastic left heart syndrome: a case report

We report a technique to palliate hypoplastic left heart syndrome, with no PDA stenting, but with double polytetrafluoroethylene shunt from pulmonary artery to ascending and descending aorta by combined thoracotomies. A 30-day-old female was operated with this technique. Five months after first operation, the child was submitted to Norwood/Glenn operation. Good hemodinamic recovery and initial clinical evolution was observed. The child was extubated in 8th post operatory day and reentubated in the next day due to pulmonary infection. Despite antibiotic treatment, the child died after systemic infectious complications