Evaluación de la integridad de membranas plasmáticas en espermatozoides equinos refrigerados

La integridad y correcto funcionamiento de la membrana plasmática es fundamental para el metabolismo espermático y el proceso de fertilización. La capacidad fecundante de los espermatozoides se ve influenciada por el efecto adverso de la criopreservación, este proceso ejerce daños como hinchamiento, ruptura, cambios en la fluidez, alteración del flujo de calcio y cambios en la actividad enzimática en la membrana plasmática; estos eventos pueden inducir una capacitación espermática anticipada y/o reacción acrosomal. En este trabajo se analizó la integridad de la membrana plasmática de los espermatozoides mediante el uso del test hipoosmótico (host). La prueba consiste en colocar los espermatozoides en una solución de citrato de Na. Los espermatozoides cuya integridad de membranas sea normal responderán a dicho cambio mediante la incorporación de agua al medio intracelular y así hincharse (swell) a nivel de la cola para compensar la diferencia de osmolaridad

Ni-doped Hibonite (CaAl12O19): A New Turquoise Blue Ceramic Pigment

A new structure for ceramic pigments was synthesized by a conventional solid state reaction process. It is based on Ni-doped hibonite, CaAl12O19, which assumes a turquoise-like blue colour similar to that of V-doped zircon. Hibonite is associated with anorthite, CaAl2Si2O8, acting like a fluxing agent in order to lower the synthesis temperature, and with cassiterite, SnO2, acting as a tin buffer to promote coupled Ni2+ + Sn4+ -> Al3+ + Al3+ substitution, in order to ensure the electric neutrality of the hibonite lattice. Since relatively low chromophore contents are required, this new system constitutes an interesting alternative to the common blue ceramic pigments based on cobalt aluminate spinel or vanadium-doped zircon, implying lower cost and environmental advantages. The pigments characterization was performed by X-ray powder diffraction, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, CIELAB colourimetric analysis, and testing in ceramic glazes and bodies. The substitution of Al3+ by bigger ions, like Ni2+ and Sn4+, increases the cell volume compared to undoped hibonite and is responsible of the turquoise blue colour, as verified by UV-Vis analysis. The chromatic mechanism is due to incorporation of Ni2+ in tetrahedral coordination, likely occurring at the site M3 of the hibonite lattice, where it partially substitutes the Al3+ ion. While this product shows a strong hue as a pigment, it is not stable after severe testing in glazes and attempts to improve its colouring performance are now under development

Electronics and data acquisition demonstrator for a kinetic inductance camera

A prototype of digital frequency multiplexing electronics allowing the real time monitoring of kinetic inductance detector (KIDs) arrays for mm-wave astronomy has been developed. It requires only 2 coaxial cables for instrumenting a large array. For that, an excitation comb of frequencies is generated and fed through the detector. The direct frequency synthesis and the data acquisition relies heavily on a large FPGA using parallelized and pipelined processing. The prototype can instrument 128 resonators (pixels) over a bandwidth of 125 MHz. This paper describes the technical solution chosen, the algorithm used and the results obtained

Evaluación de semen equino refrigerado con 3 diluyentes alternativos

Las funciones del plasma seminal son mantener la viabilidad espermática, proveer un medio óptimo para el traslado y fecundación de los espermatozoides en el tracto reproductor de la hembra. La refrigeración implica un riesgo en la sobrevida de los espermatozoides; para preservarlos durante períodos prolongados, su actividad metabólica debe ser reducida mediante la dilución en un medio apropiado y la reducción de la temperatura. Los diluyentes utilizados pueden ser de origen comercial o realizados a partir de la fórmula descripta por Kenney en EEUU (1975) a base de leche en polvo. Debida a la amplia gama de aditivos presentes en las leches en polvo de producción nacional es necesario evaluar si éstos pueden tener efectos favorables o no en el proceso de refrigeración de semen equino, para poder ser usadas en su preservación

Drug resistance in B and non-B subtypes amongst subjects recently diagnosed as primary/recent or chronic HIV-infected over the period 2013–2016: Impact on susceptibility to first-line strategies including integrase strand-transfer inhibitors

Objectives To characterize the prevalence of transmitted drug resistance mutations (TDRMs) by plasma analysis of 750 patients at the time of HIV diagnosis from January 1, 2013 to November 16, 2016 in the Veneto region (Italy), where all drugs included in the recommended first line therapies were prescribed, included integrase strand transfer inhibitors (InNSTI). Methods TDRMs were defined according to the Stanford HIV database algorithm. Results Subtype B was the most prevalent HIV clade (67.3%). A total of 92 patients (12.3%) were expected to be resistant to one drug at least, most with a single class mutation (60/68–88.2% in subtype B infected subjectsand 23/24–95.8% in non-B subjects) and affecting mainly NNRTIs. No significant differences were observed between the prevalence rates of TDRMs involving one or more drugs, except for the presence of E138A quite only in patients with B subtype and other NNRTI in subjects with non-B infection. The diagnosis of primary/recent infection was made in 73 patients (9.7%): they had almost only TDRMs involving a single class. Resistance to InSTI was studied in 484 subjects (53 with primary-recent infection), one patient had 143C in 2016, a total of thirteen 157Q mutations were detected (only one in primary/recent infection). Conclusions Only one major InSTI-TDRM was identified but monitoring of TDRMs should continue in the light of continuing presence of NNRTI-related mutation amongst newly diagnosed subjects, sometime impacting also to modern NNRTI drugs recommended in first-line therapy

Reducing the impact of radioactivity on quantum circuits in a deep-underground facility

As quantum coherence times of superconducting circuits have increased from nanoseconds to hundreds of microseconds, they are currently one of the leading platforms for quantum information processing. However, coherence needs to further improve by orders of magnitude to reduce the prohibitive hardware overhead of current error correction schemes. Reaching this goal hinges on reducing the density of broken Cooper pairs, so-called quasiparticles. Here, we show that environmental radioactivity is a significant source of nonequilibrium quasiparticles. Moreover, ionizing radiation introduces time-correlated quasiparticle bursts in resonators on the same chip, further complicating quantum error correction. Operating in a deep-underground lead-shielded cryostat decreases the quasiparticle burst rate by a factor fifty and reduces dissipation up to a factor four, showcasing the importance of radiation abatement in future solid-state quantum hardware

Ancient Migratory Events in the Middle East: New Clues from the Y-Chromosome Variation of Modern Iranians

Knowledge of high resolution Y-chromosome haplogroup diversification within Iran provides important geographic context regarding the spread and compartmentalization of male lineages in the Middle East and southwestern Asia. At present, the Iranian population is characterized by an extraordinary mix of different ethnic groups speaking a variety of Indo-Iranian, Semitic and Turkic languages. Despite these features, only few studies have investigated the multiethnic components of the Iranian gene pool. In this survey 938 Iranian male DNAs belonging to 15 ethnic groups from 14 Iranian provinces were analyzed for 84 Y-chromosome biallelic markers and 10 STRs. The results show an autochthonous but non-homogeneous ancient background mainly composed by J2a sub-clades with different external contributions. The phylogeography of the main haplogroups allowed identifying post-glacial and Neolithic expansions toward western Eurasia but also recent movements towards the Iranian region from western Eurasia (R1b-L23), Central Asia (Q-M25), Asia Minor (J2a-M92) and southern Mesopotamia (J1-Page08). In spite of the presence of important geographic barriers (Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges, and the Dasht-e Kavir and Dash-e Lut deserts) which may have limited gene flow, AMOVA analysis revealed that language, in addition to geography, has played an important role in shaping the nowadays Iranian gene pool. Overall, this study provides a portrait of the Y-chromosomal variation in Iran, useful for depicting a more comprehensive history of the peoples of this area as well as for reconstructing ancient migration routes. In addition, our results evidence the important role of the Iranian plateau as source and recipient of gene flow between culturally and genetically distinct population

Global Antifungal Profile Optimization of Chlorophenyl Derivatives against Botrytis cinerea and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides

Twenty-two aromatic derivatives bearing a chlorine atom and a different chain in the para or meta position were prepared and evaluated for their in vitro antifungal activity against the phytopathogenic fungi Botrytis cinerea and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides. The results showed that maximum inhibition of the growth of these fungi was exhibited for enantiomers S and R of 1-(40-chlorophenyl)- 2-phenylethanol (3 and 4). Furthermore, their antifungal activity showed a clear structure-activity relationship (SAR) trend confirming the importance of the benzyl hydroxyl group in the inhibitory mechanism of the compounds studied. Additionally, a multiobjective optimization study of the global antifungal profile of chlorophenyl derivatives was conducted in order to establish a rational strategy for the filtering of new fungicide candidates from combinatorial libraries. The MOOPDESIRE methodology was used for this purpose providing reliable ranking models that can be used later

CUPID-0: the first array of enriched scintillating bolometers for 0decay investigations

The CUPID-0 detector hosted at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy, is the first large array of enriched scintillating cryogenic detectors for the investigation of82Se neutrinoless double-beta decay (0). CUPID-0 aims at measuring a background index in the region of interest (RoI) for 0at the level of 10- 3 counts/(keV kg years), the lowest value ever measured using cryogenic detectors. CUPID-0 operates an array of Zn82Se scintillating bolometers coupled with bolometric light detectors, with a state of the art technology for background suppression and thorough protocols and procedures for the detector preparation and construction. In this paper, the different phases of the detector design and construction will be presented, from the material selection (for the absorber production) to the new and innovative detector structure. The successful construction of the detector lead to promising preliminary detector performance which is discussed here