Physiological and enzymatic changes in rice seeds stored at low temperatures

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of low temperatures on the physiological and enzymatic changes of rice seeds. The seeds were packed in airtight chambers and maintained at temperatures of 8 and -50°C for periods of 15, 30 , 45, 60, 75 and 90 days. The same procedure was adopted for the control treatment with the seeds  kept at a temperature of 25°C. The seeds were evaluated regarding germination test; seedling emergency;  emergency speed index; length and dry weight of radicle; and seedling of shoot. The activity of amylase and  total protein content were also evaluated. The temperatures of 8 and -50°C significantly influenced the  physiological quality and the enzyme amylase activity of rice seeds, resulting in higher germination, seedling  emergence and enzyme activity. The temperature is a promising alternative for the maintenance of  physiological quality and enzymatic activity of rice seeds during storage. Key words: Oryza sativa L., enzymatic activity, physiological quality, storage.Abbreviation: ESI, Emergence speed index; PVP, polyvinylpyrrolidone

Design and development of a low-cost reactor for biodiesel production from waste cooking oil (WCO)

Biodiesel stands out as a renewable, biodegradable, and non-toxic fuel when compared to fossil fuels, and has attracted significant attention from researchers and industries for environmental protection and sustainable development. However, around 95% of the world biodiesel production is derived from edible oils, which leads to a competition between oil production for food or for fuel and results in increased costs compared to diesel fuel. Biodiesel production from WCO offers a clean technological solution for both disposal of WCO and cost production problems. For these reasons, non-edible waste cooking oils are considered one of the most promising alternatives of raw material for biodiesel production. WCO can also promote social inclusion in urban areas by generating extra revenue by recycling. The aim of the present work was to develop a low-cost biodiesel reactor by Biosystems Engineering students and teachers from the School of Sciences and Engineering of São Paulo State University (UNESP). The primary goal was to include biofuels technology into the Biosystems Engineering undergraduate curriculum in order to integrate and transcend the contents contemplated in our course by helping the students to build a technological low-cost reactor with innovative research in the biofuels technology field

Avaliação dos parâmetros ambientais e fisiológicos para frangos de corte linhagem caipira em diferentes fases de criação na Amazônia Ocidental / Evaluation of environmental and physiological parameters for free-range broilers in different productive phases in the Western Amazon

Objetivou-se com este trabalho avaliar a influência do ambiente em diferentes períodos do dia sobre os parâmetros fisiológicos de frangos caipira da linhagem Label Rouge em diferentes fases de criação (inicial, crescimento e terminação) na Amazônia Ocidental. Foram utilizados 300 pintinhos da linhagem Caipira Label Rouge, distribuídos em vinte cinco boxes de 12 animais cada. Semanalmente foram coletados dados de temperatura de bulbo seco, temperatura de ponto de orvalho, temperatura de globo negro e umidade relativa no interior do galpão, em três pontos (início, meio e fim) e em diferentes horários, 09:00, 15:00 e 21:00 horas. A partir da coleta das variáveis climáticas foram calculados os índices de conforto térmico: índices de temperatura e umidade e o índice de temperatura de globo e umidade. Os parâmetros fisiológicos foram avaliados em cada fase de criação (inicial, crescimento e final), nas idades de 21, 42 e 63 dias, considerando as variáveis, temperatura cloacal, temperaturas superficiais (cabeça, pescoço, dorso, asa e pernas) e frequência respiratória. Os resultados dos índices bioclimáticos demonstraram que em todas fases de criação os animais se encontravam fora da faixa de conforto térmico de temperatura e umidade relativa, sendo os maiores índices (p<0,05) observados no período da tarde. Para os parâmetros fisiológicos, foi possível observar que houve incremento (p<0,05) em todas as temperaturas mensuradas, como também, na frequência respiratória (p<0,05) no período da tarde nas fases inicial e crescimento. Sendo assim, conclui-se que as altas temperaturas associadas a alta umidade no período da tarde aumentaram os índices bioclimáticos e o desconforto dos animais, alterando as temperaturas superficiais e frequência respiratória de frangos caipiras Label Rouge criados na Amazônia Ocidental. 

Comparative radiological features of disseminated disease due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis vs non-tuberculosis mycobacteria among AIDS patients in Brazil

Background: Disseminated mycobacterial disease is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with HIV-infection. Nonspecific clinical presentation makes the diagnosis difficult and sometimes neglected. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study to compare the presentation of disseminated Mycobacterial tuberculosis (MTB) and non-tuberculous Mycobacterial (NTM) disease in HIV-positive patients from 1996 to 2006 in Brazil. Results: Tuberculosis (TB) was diagnosed in 65 patients (67.7%) and NTM in 31 (32.3%) patients. Patients with NTM had lower CD4 T cells counts (median 13.0 cells/mm3 versus 42.0 cells/mm3, P = 0.002). Patients with tuberculosis had significantly more positive acid-fast smears (48.0% vs 13.6%, P = 0.01). On chest X-ray, miliary infiltrate was only seen in patients with MTB (28.1% vs. 0.0%, P = 0.01). Pleural effusion was more common in patients with MTB (45.6% vs. 13.0%, P = 0.01). Abdominal adenopathy (73.1% vs. 33.3%, P = 0.003) and splenic hypoechoic nodules (38.5% vs. 0.0%, P = 0.002) were more common in patients with TB. Conclusion: Miliary pulmonary pattern on X-ray, pleural effusion, abdominal adenopathy, and splenic hypoechoic nodules were imaging findings associated with the diagnosis of tuberculosis in HIV-infected patients. Recognition of these imaging features will help to distinguish TB from NTM in AIDS patients with fever of unknown origin due to disseminated mycobacterial disease

Correlated insulator behaviour at half-filling in magic-angle graphene superlattices

Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures are an emergent class of metamaterials comprised of vertically stacked two-dimensional (2D) building blocks, which provide us with a vast tool set to engineer their properties on top of the already rich tunability of 2D materials. 1 One of the knobs, the twist angle between different layers, plays a crucial role in the ultimate electronic properties of a vdW heterostructure and does not have a direct analog in other systems such as MBE-grown semiconductor heterostructures. For small twist angles, the moiré pattern produced by the lattice misorientation creates a long-range modulation. So far, the study of the effect of twist angles in vdW heterostructures has been mostly concentrated in graphene/hex a gonal boron nitride (h-BN) twisted structures, which exhibit relatively weak interlayer interaction due to the presence of a large bandgap in h-BN. 2-5 Here we show that when two graphene sheets are twisted by an angle close to the theoretically predicted ‘magic angle’, the resulting flat band structure near charge neutrality gives rise to a strongly-correlated electronic system . 6 These flat bands exhibit half-filling insulating phases at zero magnetic field, which we show to be a Mott-like insulator arising from electrons localized in the moiré superlattice. These unique properties of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TwBLG) open up a new playground for exotic many-body quantum phases in a 2D platform made of pure carbon and without mag netic field. The easy accessibility of the flat bands, the electrical tunability, and the bandwidth tunability though twist angle may pave the way towards more exotic correlated systems, such as unconventional superconductors or quantum spin liquids

Search for CP violation in D+→ϕπ+ and D+s→K0Sπ+ decays

A search for CP violation in D + → ϕπ + decays is performed using data collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 at a centre of mass energy of 7 TeV. The CP -violating asymmetry is measured to be (−0.04 ± 0.14 ± 0.14)% for candidates with K − K + mass within 20 MeV/c 2 of the ϕ meson mass. A search for a CP -violating asymmetry that varies across the ϕ mass region of the D + → K − K + π + Dalitz plot is also performed, and no evidence for CP violation is found. In addition, the CP asymmetry in the D+s→K0Sπ+ decay is measured to be (0.61 ± 0.83 ± 0.14)%

Study of Bc+B_c^+ decays to the K+K−π+K^+K^-\pi^+ final state and evidence for the decay Bc+→χc0π+B_c^+\to\chi_{c0}\pi^+

A study of $B_c^+\to K^+K^-\pi^+$ decays is performed for the first time using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ collected by the LHCb experiment in $pp$ collisions at centre-of-mass energies of $7$ and $8$ TeV. Evidence for the decay $B_c^+\to\chi_{c0}(\to K^+K^-)\pi^+$ is reported with a significance of 4.0 standard deviations, resulting in the measurement of $\frac{\sigma(B_c^+)}{\sigma(B^+)}\times\mathcal{B}(B_c^+\to\chi_{c0}\pi^+)$ to be $(9.8^{+3.4}_{-3.0}(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.8(\mathrm{syst}))\times 10^{-6}$. Here $\mathcal{B}$ denotes a branching fraction while $\sigma(B_c^+)$ and $\sigma(B^+)$ are the production cross-sections for $B_c^+$ and $B^+$ mesons. An indication of $\bar b c$ weak annihilation is found for the region $m(K^-\pi^+)<1.834\mathrm{\,Ge\kern -0.1em V\!/}c^2$, with a significance of 2.4 standard deviations.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2016-022.html, link to supplemental material inserted in the reference

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40

Search for high-mass resonances decaying to dilepton final states in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for high-mass resonances decaying to an electron-positron pair or a muon-antimuon pair. The search is sensitive to heavy neutral Z′ gauge bosons, Randall-Sundrum gravitons, Z * bosons, techni-mesons, Kaluza-Klein Z/γ bosons, and bosons predicted by Torsion models. Results are presented based on an analysis of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb−1 in the e + e − channel and 5.0 fb−1 in the μ + μ −channel. A Z ′ boson with Standard Model-like couplings is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.22 TeV. A Randall-Sundrum graviton with coupling k/MPl=0.1 is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.16 TeV. Limits on the other models are also presented, including Technicolor and Minimal Z′ Models