Effect of parasitism on the relative condition factor of Astyanax bimaculatus (Characiformes: Characidae) a freshwater fish from Caatinga domain, Brazil

The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of parasitism on the condition factor of Astyanax bimaculatus (Linnaeus 1758) (Characiformes, Characidae), in Batateiras river, Salgado river basin, northeastern Brazil. A total of 242 host specimens were collected between August 2018 and February 2020. The host presented a community of metazoan parasites of 14 taxa, totaling 1,750 specimens collected, with mean total abundance of 7.23 specimens per fish, being the class Monogenea the most predominant taxonomic group. The relative condition factor (Kn) differed significantly between parasitized and non-parasitized individuals, in which the parasitized hosts presented higher values of Kn. The abundance of the monogeneans Characithecium costaricensis and Diaphorocleidus sp. showed positive and significant correlations with the Kn. Considering the sex of the host, males had higher parasite burden than females, although females present higher values of Kn. The parasitic burden of hosts did not show significant differences between seasonal periods.

Metazoan parasite fauna of two peacock-bass cichlid fish in Brazil

A parasitological study of two freshwater cichlid fish of the genus Cichla (C. kelberi and C. piquiti) from six different aquatic ecosystems in Brazil was performed. Based on the survey, a checklist of the component community of the metazoan parasites of each of the two peacock-bass fish species was produced. Fish were collected from May 2009 to April 2011 in six Brazilian aquatic ecosystems using gillnets of different mesh sizes or angling using standardized effort. In total, six groups of parasites were collected: Monogenea, Digenea, Cestoda, Nematoda, Copepoda and Branchiura. Among the groups of parasites found, nematodes presented the greatest number of species, with seven. The study lists new records of parasites in C. kelberi and C. piquiti, and new biogeography records of parasites in six different aquatic ecosystems in Brazil. The present paper collaborates with the study of conservation biology by adding new records of parasite species

Polymorphic Microsatellite Loci in the Independent-founding Wasp Polists versicolor (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)

Microsatellite primers developed for a given species are sometimes useful for another in the same genus, making possible to search for pre-existing suitable primers in the data banks such as GenBank. We examined whether existing primers developed for Polistes wasps could be used for the independent-founding wasp Polistes versicolor. We tested 50 microsatellite primers from three Polistes species and found that five microsatellite loci show polymorphism in size in P. versicolor. These five loci were highly polymorphic, having four to 10 alleles in P. versicolor with an expected heterozygosity of 0.530–0.836. These loci can be used to study parameters concerning genetic relatedness such as social interactions in colonies and genetic conflicts of interest among nestmate individuals

Evaluation of costs for quality control of [99mTc]technetium radiopharmaceuticals in Brazilian nuclear medicine centers

OBJETIVO: Estabelecer os custos dos controles de qualidade para os radiofármacos marcados com [99mTc]tecnécio nos serviços de medicina nuclear do Brasil, em atenção às resoluções RDC nº 38/2008 e RDC nº 63/2009 editadas pela Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária. MATERIAIS E MÉTODOS: Foram apurados preços de materiais de consumo, equipamentos e de mão-de-obra para a realização dos controles de qualidade. Os valores foram convertidos para unidades de volume, tempo e outras unidades cabíveis para a determinação do preço unitário. RESULTADOS: O investimento para aquisição de materiais de consumo e equipamentos foi estimado ser de R$35.500,00. O custo final para o controle de cada kit variou entre R$ 6,44 e R$7,80, dependendo do produto a ser analisado e do profissional selecionado para execução do procedimento. Esses valores podem representar de 0,5$ 35,500.00. The final unit cost for quality control of a [99mTc]technetium radiopharmaceutical kit ranged from R$6.44 to R$ 7.80 per kit, depending on the product under analysis, on the methodology applied and on the qualification of the professional involved in the process. Such values may correspond to 0.5% to 10% of the amount received by the institution per diagnostic procedure. In practice the effective cost might be lower, considering that a single labeled kit can be fractionated into several doses. CONCLUSION: Considering the gains in quality and patients' safety, the authors conclude that costs for implementing a quality control program for radiopharmaceuticals can be absorbed in the financial planning of nuclear medicine centers

Model for the spatio-temporal intermittency of the energy dissipation in turbulent flows

Modeling the intermittent behavior of turbulent energy dissipation processes both in space and time is often a relevant problem when dealing with phenomena occurring in high Reynolds number flows, especially in astrophysical and space fluids. In this paper, a dynamical model is proposed to describe the spatio-temporal intermittency of energy dissipation rate in a turbulent system. This is done by using a shell model to simulate the turbulent cascade and introducing some heuristic rules, partly inspired by the well known $p$-model, to construct a spatial structure of the energy dissipation rate. In order to validate the model and to study its spatially intermittency properties, a series of numerical simulations have been performed. These show that the level of spatial intermittency of the system can be simply tuned by varying a single parameter of the model and that scaling laws in agreement with those obtained from experiments on fully turbulent hydrodynamic flows can be recovered. It is finally suggested that the model could represent a useful tool to simulate the spatio-temporal intermittency of turbulent energy dissipation in those high Reynolds number astrophysical fluids where impulsive energy release processes can be associated to the dynamics of the turbulent cascade.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure

Incidence of Histological Prostatitis and Its Correlation with PSA Density

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of asymptomatic, histologically proven prostatitis in men with symptoms of benign prostate hyperplasia and to observe the correlation between asymptomatic prostatitis and prostate specific antigen (PSA) density. INTRODUCTION: The incidence of type IV prostatitis is unknown. There is a tendency to correlate the presence of inflammatory prostatitis with an elevation of PSA. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From August 2000 to January 2006, 183 patients who underwent surgical treatment for benign prostate hyperplasia as a result of obstructive or irritative symptoms were prospectively studied. In accordance with the histology findings, these patients were divided into two groups: group I included patients with the presence of histological prostatitis and group II included patients with the absence of histological prostatitis. The mean PSA densities were compared. RESULTS: Histological evidence of prostatitis was observed in 145 patients. In this group, the mean PSA density was 0.136 ± 0.095. In 38 cases, there was no evidence of inflammation upon histological examination of the surgical samples. In these 38 cases, the mean PSA density was 0.126 ± 0.129. No statistically significant differences were detected between the two groups; the p-value is 0.124. CONCLUSION: Abnormal PSA density should not be attributed to the inflammatory prostatitis process

On the neutral Higgs boson masses in the MSSM for arbitrary stop mixing

We compute the O(alpha_t alpha_s) two-loop corrections to the neutral Higgs boson masses in the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. An appropriate use of the effective potential allows us to obtain simple analytical formulae, valid for arbitrary values of mA and of the mass parameters in the stop sector. We elucidate some subtleties of the effective potential calculation, and find full agreement with the numerical output of the existing diagrammatic calculation. We discuss in detail the limit of heavy gluino.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures. minor misprints corrected, some sentences clarifie

Spine radiosurgery for the local treatment of spine metastases: Intensity-modulated radiotherapy, image guidance, clinical aspects and future directions

Many cancer patients will develop spinal metastases. Local control is important for preventing neurologic compromise and to relieve pain. Stereotactic body radiotherapy or spinal radiosurgery is a new radiation therapy technique for spinal metastasis that can deliver a high dose of radiation to a tumor while minimizing the radiation delivered to healthy, neighboring tissues. This treatment is based on intensity-modulated radiotherapy, image guidance and rigid immobilization. Spinal radiosurgery is an increasingly utilized treatment method that improves local control and pain relief after delivering ablative doses of radiation. Here, we present a review highlighting the use of spinal radiosurgery for the treatment of metastatic tumors of the spine. The data used in the review were collected from both published studies and ongoing trials. We found that spinal radiosurgery is safe and provides excellent tumor control (up to 94% local control) and pain relief (up to 96%), independent of histology. Extensive data regarding clinical outcomes are available; however, this information has primarily been generated from retrospective and nonrandomized prospective series. Currently, two randomized trials are enrolling patients to study clinical applications of fractionation schedules spinal Radiosurgery. Additionally, a phase I clinical trial is being conducted to assess the safety of concurrent stereotactic body radiotherapy and ipilimumab for spinal metastases. Clinical trials to refine clinical indications and dose fractionation are ongoing. The concomitant use of targeted agents may produce better outcomes in the future

Targeted knock-down of miR21 primary transcripts using snoMEN vectors induces apoptosis in human cancer cell lines

We have previously reported an antisense technology, 'snoMEN vectors', for targeted knock-down of protein coding mRNAs using human snoRNAs manipulated to contain short regions of sequence complementarity with the mRNA target. Here we characterise the use of snoMEN vectors to target the knock-down of micro RNA primary transcripts. We document the specific knock-down of miR21 in HeLa cells using plasmid vectors expressing miR21-targeted snoMEN RNAs and show this induces apoptosis. Knock-down is dependent on the presence of complementary sequences in the snoMEN vector and the induction of apoptosis can be suppressed by over-expression of miR21. Furthermore, we have also developed lentiviral vectors for delivery of snoMEN RNAs and show this increases the efficiency of vector transduction in many human cell lines that are difficult to transfect with plasmid vectors. Transduction of lentiviral vectors expressing snoMEN targeted to pri-miR21 induces apoptosis in human lung adenocarcinoma cells, which express high levels of miR21, but not in human primary cells. We show that snoMEN-mediated suppression of miRNA expression is prevented by siRNA knock-down of Ago2, but not by knock-down of Ago1 or Upf1. snoMEN RNAs colocalise with Ago2 in cell nuclei and nucleoli and can be co-immunoprecipitated from nuclear extracts by antibodies specific for Ago2