Rheological behavior of blueberry

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)The physical and physicochemical characteristics of blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) fruits produced in Brazil were analyzed. Rheological properties were measured at 5, 25, 45 and 65 degrees C, on a stress controlled rheometer equipped with grooved a stainless-steel parallel-plate in a shear rate range of 0-300 s(-1), with the objective of determining the influence of temperature on the rheological properties. The pseudoplastic behavior with yield stress was well described by the Ostwald-de-Waele (Power Law), Herschel-Bulkley (HB) and Mizhari Berk models. The yield stress and behavior index decreased with the increase in the temperatures for 5, 25, and 45 degrees C whereas for the temperature of 65 degrees C the effects were the opposite exhibiting elevated values. The viscosity decreased with an increase in temperature, and the Arrhenius equation described adequately the effect of temperature on the apparent viscosity of the puree, in which the activation energy (Ea) determined at a shear rate of 100 s(-1) was 9.36 kJ.mol(-1).294732737UNICAMPFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Nutrisaude Industria e Comercio de Frutas LtdaFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Paclitaxel, carboplatin and gemcitabine combination as induction chemotherapy for stage IIIA N2 bulky non-small cell lung cancer

Background: Induct ion chemotherapy followed by surgical resection or definitive radiotherapy for patients affected by stage IIIA N2 bulky non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been investigated in several trials. Patients and Methods: In this present study, 52 patients with stage IIIA N2 bulky NSCLC with cytologically or histologically confirmed mediastinal lymph node involvement received paclitaxel 175 mg/mq on day 1, carboplatin AUC 5 on day 1 and gemcitabine 1,000 mg/mq on day 1 and 8 every 3 weeks for three cycles as induction chemotherapy. Results: Objective response (4 complete remission and 36 partial remission) was achieved in 40/52 patients. No early or toxic deaths were observed. Twenty-two patients were surgically explored. Fifteen were excluded for resection for biopsy-proven residual tumour in mediastinal nodes. Complete surgical resection was performed in 15 patients with confirmed pathological downstaging. Pathological complete response was achieved in 4 patients. No surgery-related mortality or significant morbidity was reported. Adjuvant radiotherapy was delivered in 15 patients, and 30 patients received definitive radiotherapy. Conclusion: In the present study, the combination of paclitaxel, carboplatin and gemcitabine has been a safe and active regimen in poor-prognosis stage IIIA N2 bulky NSCLC

Anatomia clinica del sistema articolare del piede

From a semantic point of view the word “ankle” and “ankle region” are not synonyms as “ankle” identifies all the components of the ankle joint while “ankle region” identifies the ankle joint as well as every structures in the region, form the surface level to the skeletal one. The articular system of the foot is formed by thirthyfour synovial joints, seventeen of which have complementary curvilinear articular surface, the remaning seventeen having plane joints. The rounded surface joints are: the talonavicular joint (a spheroidal joint that is part of the transverse tarsal joint), the “anatomical” subtalar joint ( a saddle joint), five ellipsoid (or condylar) joints and ten, ankle and interphalangeal joints are cylindrical joints. The plane synovial joints have some linkable fibrous elements (interosseous ligaments), so they are classified as amphiartrosis. On a systemic and clinical anatomic level, the articles focuses on: the ankle joint and the ribbon- like thicknenings in the deep fascia of the leg (the so called retinacula) which anchors the tendons (heading to the foot) of the leg muscles to the anatomical pulley represented by the skeletal plane; the subtalar joint, the transverse tarsal joint (or Chopart’s joint) other intertarsal joints, the tarso- metatarsal joints (or Lisfranc’s joint) the intemetatarsal joints, the metatarsophalangeal and interpha- langeal joints and the plantar, dorsal and interosseous tarsal ligaments. From a clinical anatomy point of view, the transverse tarsal joint (Chopart’s joint) and the tarso- metatarsal joints (Lisfranc’s joint) are quite interesting because the easily permit the distinction between the hindfoot and the midfoot (Chopart’s joint) and between the midfoot and the forefoot (Lisfranc’s joint) through palpable landmarks along the medial and the lateral border of the foo

Chryseobacterium indologenes infection in a newborn: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p><it>Chryseobacterium indologenes </it>is an uncommon human pathogen. Most infections have been detected in hospitalized patients with severe underlying diseases who had indwelling devices implanted. Infection caused by <it>C. indologenes </it>in a newborn has not been previously reported.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We present a case of ventilator-associated pneumonia caused by <it>C. indologenes </it>in a full-term Caucasian newborn baby boy with congenital heart disease who was successfully treated with piperacillin-tazobactam.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p><it>C. indologenes </it>should be considered as a potential pathogen in newborns in the presence of invasive equipment or treatment with long-term broad-spectrum antibiotics. Appropriate choice of effective antimicrobial agents for treatment is difficult because of the unpredictability and breadth of antimicrobial resistance of these organisms, which often involves resistance to many of the antibiotics chosen empirically for serious Gram-negative infections.</p

A systematic analysis of host factors reveals a Med23-interferon-λ regulatory axis against herpes simplex virus type 1 replication

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is a neurotropic virus causing vesicular oral or genital skin lesions, meningitis and other diseases particularly harmful in immunocompromised individuals. To comprehensively investigate the complex interaction between HSV-1 and its host we combined two genome-scale screens for host factors (HFs) involved in virus replication. A yeast two-hybrid screen for protein interactions and a RNA interference (RNAi) screen with a druggable genome small interfering RNA (siRNA) library confirmed existing and identified novel HFs which functionally influence HSV-1 infection. Bioinformatic analyses found the 358 HFs were enriched for several pathways and multi-protein complexes. Of particular interest was the identification of Med23 as a strongly anti-viral component of the largely pro-viral Mediator complex, which links specific transcription factors to RNA polymerase II. The anti-viral effect of Med23 on HSV-1 replication was confirmed in gain-of-function gene overexpression experiments, and this inhibitory effect was specific to HSV-1, as a range of other viruses including Vaccinia virus and Semliki Forest virus were unaffected by Med23 depletion. We found Med23 significantly upregulated expression of the type III interferon family (IFN-λ) at the mRNA and protein level by directly interacting with the transcription factor IRF7. The synergistic effect of Med23 and IRF7 on IFN-λ induction suggests this is the major transcription factor for IFN-λ expression. Genotypic analysis of patients suffering recurrent orofacial HSV-1 outbreaks, previously shown to be deficient in IFN-λ secretion, found a significant correlation with a single nucleotide polymorphism in the IFN-λ3 (IL28b) promoter strongly linked to Hepatitis C disease and treatment outcome. This paper describes a link between Med23 and IFN-λ, provides evidence for the crucial role of IFN-λ in HSV-1 immune control, and highlights the power of integrative genome-scale approaches to identify HFs critical for disease progression and outcome

Charged-Higgs phenomenology in the Aligned two-Higgs-doublet model

The alignment in flavour space of the Yukawa matrices of a general two-Higgs-doublet model results in the absence of tree-level flavour-changing neutral currents. In addition to the usual fermion masses and mixings, the aligned Yukawa structure only contains three complex parameters, which are potential new sources of CP violation. For particular values of these three parameters all known specific implementations of the model based on discrete Z_2 symmetries are recovered. One of the most distinctive features of the two-Higgs-doublet model is the presence of a charged scalar. In this work, we discuss its main phenomenological consequences in flavour-changing processes at low energies and derive the corresponding constraints on the parameters of the aligned two-Higgs-doublet model.Comment: 46 pages, 19 figures. Version accepted for publication in JHEP. References added. Discussion slightly extended. Conclusions unchange

Prime movers : mechanochemistry of mitotic kinesins

Mitotic spindles are self-organizing protein machines that harness teams of multiple force generators to drive chromosome segregation. Kinesins are key members of these force-generating teams. Different kinesins walk directionally along dynamic microtubules, anchor, crosslink, align and sort microtubules into polarized bundles, and influence microtubule dynamics by interacting with microtubule tips. The mechanochemical mechanisms of these kinesins are specialized to enable each type to make a specific contribution to spindle self-organization and chromosome segregation