An update on the pathology and clinical management of gouty arthritis

Gouty arthritis is an inflammatory condition associated with debilitating clinical symptoms, functional impairments, and a substantial impact on quality of life. This condition is initially triggered by the deposition of monosodium urate crystals into the joint space. This causes an inflammatory cascade resulting in the secretion of several proinflammatory cytokines and neutrophil recruitment into the joint. While generally effective, currently available agents are associated with a number of adverse events and contraindications that complicate their use. Based on our increased understanding of the inflammatory pathogenesis of gouty arthritis, several new agents are under development that may provide increased efficacy and reduced toxicity

Salt Tolerance of Lactococcus lactis R-604 as Influenced by Exposure to Various Stress Conditions

Lactococcus lactis is a dairy culture bacterium widely used in dairy products that contain salt (NaCl) such as cheese and salted butter. Osmotic conditions generally hinder the growth of both pathogen and desirable bacteria. It has been observed that many stress-induced proteins are produced after exposure to an environmental stress protecting the cell against other stresses since the first exposure starts the defense mechanisms of the cells creating an effect of cross-protection. If salt tolerance is enhanced in desirable bacteria they would survive better in salty environments. The objective of this study was to evaluate the salt tolerance of Lactococcus lactis R-604 after exposure of various stress conditions. The culture was subjected to 10% v/v ethanol for 30 minutes, 15 mM of hydrogen peroxide for 30 minutes, mild heat at 52°C for 30 minutes and UV light (245 nm) for 5 minutes. The culture was also subjected to starvation (no lactose in M17 broth) for 24 hours or prior osmotic adaption (3% w/v NaCl in M17 broth) for 24 h aerobically at 30°C. A control was run without any stress under the same conditions of each experiment. An initial concentration of 7 log CFU’s/mL was used for all treatments. Growth was determined under 5 concentrations of NaCl (0, 1, 3, 5 and 7% w/v). Plating was done every 24 h for 5 days in M17 agar with 0.5% w/v of lactose and incubated aerobically at 30°C for 48 hours. Salt tolerance was enhanced after mild heat or ethanol exposure at 5% w/v NaCl on days 3, 4 and 5. Salt tolerance was also enhance after hydrogen peroxide stress at 5% w/v NaCl on days 4 and 5 and after 24 hours of lactose starvation at 3% w/v on day 3. L. lactis R-604 was not negatively affected by any of the stress conditions applied at salt concentrations of 0, 1 and 3% w/v NaCl. The culture was able to grow in 3% NaCl or no lactose after 24 hours and these stress conditions did not affect its salt tolerance. Growth was maintained at 7% w/v NaCl regardless the stress conditions, however combination of ethanol or hydrogen peroxide at 7% w/v NaCl reduced growth of L. lactis R-604

Physical activity and spatial use during school break times in children aged four

Poster de CongresoAnalyze quantity of physical activity and use of space during school break times according to gender, in four-year-old pupils.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers and Remittances on Credit Market Outcomes in Rural Nicaragua

The impact of public and private transfers on credit markets has not been sufficiently studied and understanding any spill over effects caused by these transfers may be useful for policy makers. This paper estimates the impact of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) and remittances received by poor households in rural Nicaragua on their decision to request a loan. We find that, on average, CCTs did not affect the request of credit while remittances increased it, controlling for potential endogeneity. We argue the reduction in income risk provided by remittances changes borrowers’ expected marginal returns to a loan and/or their creditworthiness, as perceived by lenders. The successful enforcement of the use of CCTs on long-term investments seems to have avoided externalities on the use of short-term credit these households have access to and their creditworthiness.International Development, D14, F22, O15,

Energy Efficiency of Software Transactional Memory in a Heterogeneous Architecture

Hardware vendors make an important effort creating low-power CPUs that keep battery duration and durability above acceptable levels. In order to achieve this goal and provide good performance-energy for a wide variety of applications, ARM designed the big.LITTLE architecture. This heterogeneous multi-core architecture features two different types of cores: big cores oriented to performance and little cores, slower and aimed to save energy consumption. As all the cores have access to the same memory, multi-threaded applications must resort to some mutual exclusion mechanism to coordinate the access to shared data by the concurrent threads. Transactional Memory (TM) represents an optimistic approach for shared-memory synchronization. To take full advantage of the features offered by software TM, but also benefit from the characteristics of the heterogeneous big.LITTLE architectures, our focus is to propose TM solutions that take into account the power/performance requirements of the application and what it is offered by the architecture. In order to understand the current state-of-the-art and obtain useful information for future power-aware software TM solutions, we have performed an analysis of a popular TM library running on top of an ARM big.LITTLE processor. Experiments show, in general, better scalability for the LITTLE cores for most of the applications except for one, which requires the computing performance that the big cores offer.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Can it be measured - Fracture Toughness from Repetitive Nano-impacts Test?

The design of coatings in the field of engineering applications aims at a progressive shift to the development of “hard but tough” coatings. The difficulty in assessing their mechanical behaviour by conventional methods is behind the growing relevance of “in situ” experiments using instrumented microindentation technique. This technique is one of the few able to investigate the mechanical properties along of whatever length range, i.e. from small volume to bulk material. Information from the load-depth curve of indentation has proven to be abundant and varied and it can be used to determine several mechanical properties such as: hardness, Young’s modulus, yield strength, viscoelastic properties, etc [[1]].In fact, from this technique the evaluation of wear-resistance by hardness and/or scratch testing have become in a routine in a multitude of different materials [[2]]. Nevertheless, the results are not always accurate, particularly when the surfaces are subjected to erosive wear during service and fail by a fatigue process. For the purpose of providing a solution, impact technique have been developed to extend the capability of depth-sensing indentation/scratch instrumentation to perform fatigue testing in a wide variety of surfaces, such as DLC and amorphous carbon [[3]], plasma electrolytic oxidation surface[[4]], polymers [[5]] and numerous coatings for cutting tools [[6]]. Along the experiment, this technique produces a repetitive impact with a high stresses and high strain rates, simulating the fatigue conditions under repetitive contact conditions, at the nano or micro-scale. Depending on the material ductility and the load magnitude, fracture of the surface may be achieved. Therefore, the question is whether from these tests it is possible to calculate fracture toughness values, KC, since conventional ways to determine fracture toughness by single edge notched beam (SENB), chevron notched beam (CVNB) and double cantilever beam (DCB) are not applicable for systems whose dimensions are between a few hundreds of nanometers to a few microns. Along this work, it will be studied the feasibility of using impact tests with a cube-corner tip using low loads, assuming that the indented coatings resembles the pattern for the fracture mode type I considered in the classical fracture toughness tests. For this purpose, fracture toughness calculation by impact test will be analysed first in a brittle bulk Al2O3 material, since its mechanical properties are well known. After this, fracture toughness of Al2O3 coating on ductile metallic substrate will be analysed for chequing the substrate contribution and the applicability of the classical indentation models, IM, in case of impact done at low loads. Finally, a novel method to determine the fracture toughness in metallic nanomultillayer coatings by impact test will be show. The design of coatings in the field of engineering applications aims at a progressive shift to the development of “hard but tough” coatings. The difficulty in assessing their mechanical behaviour by conventional methods is behind the growing relevance of “in situ” experiments using instrumented microindentation technique. This technique is one of the few able to investigate the mechanical properties along of whatever length range, i.e. from small volume to bulk material. Information from the load-depth curve of indentation has proven to be abundant and varied and it can be used to determine several mechanical properties such as: hardness, Young’s modulus, yield strength, viscoelastic properties, etc [[1]].In fact, from this technique the evaluation of wear-resistance by hardness and/or scratch testing have become in a routine in a multitude of different materials [[2]]. Nevertheless, the results are not always accurate, particularly when the surfaces are subjected to erosive wear during service and fail by a fatigue process. For the purpose of providing a solution, impact technique have been developed to extend the capability of depth-sensing indentation/scratch instrumentation to perform fatigue testing in a wide variety of surfaces, such as DLC and amorphous carbon [[3]], plasma electrolytic oxidation surface[[4]], polymers [[5]] and numerous coatings for cutting tools [[6]]. Along the experiment, this technique produces a repetitive impact with a high stresses and high strain rates, simulating the fatigue conditions under repetitive contact conditions, at the nano or micro-scale. Depending on the material ductility and the load magnitude, fracture of the surface may be achieved. Therefore, the question is whether from these tests it is possible to calculate fracture toughness values, KC, since conventional ways to determine fracture toughness by single edge notched beam (SENB), chevron notched beam (CVNB) and double cantilever beam (DCB) are not applicable for systems whose dimensions are between a few hundreds of nanometers to a few microns. Along this work, it will be studied the feasibility of using impact tests with a cube-corner tip using low loads, assuming that the indented coatings resembles the pattern for the fracture mode type I considered in the classical fracture toughness tests. For this purpose, fracture toughness calculation by impact test will be analysed first in a brittle bulk Al2O3 material, since its mechanical properties are well known. After this, fracture toughness of Al2O3 coating on ductile metallic substrate will be analysed for chequing the substrate contribution and the applicability of the classical indentation models, IM, in case of impact done at low loads. Finally, a novel method to determine the fracture toughness in metallic nanomultillayer coatings by impact test will be show. [1] W. C. Oliver, G. M. Pharr. J. Mater. Res. 1992;7:1564. [2] J.L. Meneve, J.F. Smith, N.M. Jennett, S.R. Saunders. Appl. Surf. Sci. 1996;100/101:64 [3]B. Beake. Surf. Coat. Technol. 2005:198:90 [4]J.M. Wheeler, C.A. Collier, J.M. Paillard, J.A. Curran. Surf. Coat. Technol. 2010;204:3399. [5]B. Beake, S. Goodes, J. Smith, F. Gao. J. Mater. Res. 2004;19:237. [6]B.D. Beake, V.M. Vishnyakov, J.S. Colligon. J. Phys. D Appl. Phys. 2011;4

CONSCIÊNCIA NEGRA, PRÁTICAS CULTURAIS E IDENTIDADES SOCIAIS NO ENSINO DE HISTÓRIA

Partindo de algumas experiências realizadas em sala de aula e atividades extracurriculares levadas a cabo entre 2009 e 2011 na UTFPR, em Campo Mourão, PR, este artigo tem como objetivo refletir acerca da comemoração do Dia da Consciência Negra e das possibilidades de abordagem das culturas afrodescendentes no ensino de história. O texto ainda reflete acerca da riqueza de manifestações de natureza étnico-culturais existentes na região, e que apontam a necessidade de um urgente trabalho de mapeamento, catalogação e organização de acervos que poderão subsidiar a produção da memória destes grupos, afrodescendentes, migrantes e moradores de áreas de periferias da região

Haemodialysate: Long neglected, difficult to optimize, may modify hard outcomes

In two recent CKJ reviews, experts (Basile and Lomonte and Locatelli et al.) have reviewed haemodialysate composition. A longneglected issue, observational studies have associated the composition of haemodialysate to adverse outcomes. However, the scarcity of clinical trial-derived information results in limited guideline recommendations on the issue. Indeed, guidelines have more frequently indicated what not to do rather than what to do. In this setting, expert opinion becomes invaluable. In designing haemodialysate composition, a balance should be struck between the need to correct within a time frame of around 4 hours the electrolyte and water imbalances that take 48 to 72 h to build, with the need for gradual correction of these imbalances. The issue is complicated further by the impact of individual variability in dietary habits, medications and comorbidities. In this regard, a personalized medicine approach to individualization of haemodialysate composition offers the best chance of improving patient outcomes. But how can haemodialysate individualization be achieved, and what clinical trial design will best test the impact of such approaches on patient outcomes?Grant support: ISCIII and FEDER funds PI13/00047, Sociedad Española de Nefrologia, ISCIII-RETIC REDinREN/RD012/0021, Comunidad de Madrid CIFRA S2010/BMD-2378. Salary support: Programa Intensificación Actividad Investigadora (ISCIII/Agencia Laín-Entralgo/CM) to A.O

A Monitoring Infrastructure for the Quality Assessment of Cloud Services

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) specify the strict terms under which cloud services must be provided. The assessment of the quality of services being provided is critical for both clients and service providers. In this context, stakeholders must be capable of monitoring services delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) at runtime and of reporting any eventual non-compliance with SLAs in a comprehensive and flexible manner. In this paper, we present the definition of an SLA compliance monitoring infrastructure, which is based on the use of [email protected], its main components and artifacts, and the interactions among them. We place emphasis on the configuration of the artifacts that will enable the monitoring, and we present a prototype that can be used to perform this monitoring. The feasibility of our proposal is illustrated by means of a case study, which shows the use of the components and artifacts in the infrastructure and the configuration of a specific plan with which to monitor the services deployed on the Microsoft Azure© platform