Protein-olive oil-in-water nanoemulsions as encapsulation materials for curcumin acting as anticancer agent towards MDA-MB-231 cells

The sustainable cellular delivery of the pleiotropic drug curcumin encounters drawbacks related to its fast autoxidation at the physiological pH, cytotoxicity of delivery vehicles and poor cellular uptake. A biomaterial compatible with curcumin and with the appropriate structure to allow the correct curcumin encapsulation considering its poor solubility in water, while maintaining its stability for a safe release was developed. In this work, the biomaterial developed started by the preparation of an oil-in-water nanoemulsion using with a cytocompatible copolymer (Pluronic F 127) coated with a positively charged protein (gelatin), designed as G-Cur-NE, to mitigate the cytotoxicity issue of curcumin. These G-Cur-NE showed excellent capacity to stabilize curcumin, to increase its bio-accessibility, while allowing to arrest its autoxidation during its successful application as an anticancer agent proved by the disintegration of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells as a proof of concept

BIOLOGICAL INVASION OF Corythucha ciliata IN GREEN URBAN SPACES IN PORTUGAL: A NICHE MODELING APPROACH USING MAXIMUM ENTROPY

Corythucha ciliata (Hemiptera: Tingidae) \ue9 um inseto nativo da Am\ue9rica do Norte que foi introduzido na Europa, pela It\ue1lia, em 1964. Desde ent\ue3o tem se expandido por toda a Europa, desconhecendo-se a data de chegada e a sua \ue1rea de distribui\ue7\ue3o em Portugal. Esta importante praga invasora alimenta-se na face inferior das folhas de pl\ue1tano, uma das mais importantes \ue1rvores ornamentais nos espa\ue7os verdes urbanos em Portugal, causando senesc\ueancia prematura e eventualmente morte, em casos de infesta\ue7\uf5es severas consecutivas. A modela\ue7\ue3o de nicho est\ue1 se tornando uma ferramenta cada vez mais importante na gest\ue3o de invas\uf5es biol\uf3gicas, tanto antes como depois da introdu\ue7\ue3o do organismo invasor. Neste estudo, o software MaxEnt (m\ue1xima entropia) foi usado na modela\ue7\ue3o da distribui\ue7\ue3o invasiva potencial de Corythucha ciliata em Portugal, a partir de um conjunto de vari\ue1veis ambientais e de dados de presen\ue7a do inseto, obtidos a partir da observa\ue7\ue3o de folhas de pl\ue1tanos amostrados por todo o pa\ueds. De acordo com o melhor modelo gerado pelo MaxEnt, as \ue1reas de maior adequabilidade potencial \ue0 invas\ue3o de Corythucha ciliata encontram-se no norte de Portugal apresentando o sul e as regi\uf5es de maior altitude do norte e centro adequabilidade reduzida ou nula. Observa\ue7\uf5es laboratoriais da biologia de Corythucha ciliata aliadas aos registos de aus\ueancia em v\ue1rias localidades do sul de Portugal e ocorr\ueancia predominante na metade norte de Espanha suportam o modelo desenvolvido. Por\ue9m, a valida\ue7\ue3o do modelo requer futuras prospec\ue7\uf5es nas \ue1reas de reduzida adequabilidade e onde a praga se encontrava virtualmente ausente no momento em que foi realizada a amostragem. Os modelos de adequabilidade podem ser usados como ferramenta auxiliar na tomada de decis\ue3o no que concerne \ue0 gest\ue3o dos espa\ue7os verdes.Corythucha ciliata (Hemiptera: Tingidae) is an insect native to North America which has been introduced into Europe, through Italy, in 1964. Since then it has expanded across Europe being its date of arrival and distributional range in Portugal unknown. This important invasive pest feeds on the underside of the leaves of sycamore trees, one of the most widespread ornamental tree in urban areas of Portugal, causing their premature senescence and eventually death, in case of consecutive severe infestations. Habitat modeling is becoming an increasingly important tool for managing biological invasions, either prior or after the introduction of the invasive organism. In this study the software MaxEnt (maximum entropy) was used to model the distribution of Corythucha ciliata in its Portuguese invasive range, from a set of environmental variables and georeferenced occurrence data obtained from observation of Platanus spp. leaves sampled all over the country. According to the best model developed, the areas of greater suitability to invasion of Corythucha ciliata are located in the northern portion of the country whereas the more southern and mountainous areas are of low or virtually null suitability. Laboratory observations of Corythucha ciliata biology allied to records of pest absence across several localities of southern Portugal and predominant occurrence in the northern half of Spain support the model developed. However, model validation requires future prospection in the areas of predicted reduced suitability and where the pest was virtually absent at the moment of sampling. Suitability models can be a useful tool for decision making in management of green spaces

Solar Irradiance Forecasting Using Dynamic Ensemble Selection

Solar irradiance forecasting has been an essential topic in renewable energy generation. Forecasting is an important task because it can improve the planning and operation of photovoltaic systems, resulting in economic advantages. Traditionally, single models are employed in this task. However, issues regarding the selection of an inappropriate model, misspecification, or the presence of random fluctuations in the solar irradiance series can result in this approach underperforming. This paper proposes a heterogeneous ensemble dynamic selection model, named HetDS, to forecast solar irradiance. For each unseen test pattern, HetDS chooses the most suitable forecasting model based on a pool of seven well-known literature methods: ARIMA, support vector regression (SVR), multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP), extreme learning machine (ELM), deep belief network (DBN), random forest (RF), and gradient boosting (GB). The experimental evaluation was performed with four data sets of hourly solar irradiance measurements in Brazil. The proposed model attained an overall accuracy that is superior to the single models in terms of five well-known error metrics

TECHNOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WOOD OF Eucalyptus grandis W.Hill ex Maiden AND Eucalyptus cloeziana F. Muell, AS A SUPPLY FOR THE FURNITURE INDUSTRY

Este trabalho se desenvolveu na Universidade de Bras\uedlia e no Laborat\uf3rio de Produtos Florestais (IBAMA), Bras\uedlia, DF. Foram estudadas duas esp\ue9cies de eucalipto ( Eucalyptus grandis W.Hill ex Maiden e Eucalyptus cloeziana ) para confec\ue7\ue3o de pe\ue7as mobili\ue1rias. A madeira de E. grandis apresenta propriedades f\uedsicas (densidade e retratibilidade) e mec\ue2nicas (flex\ue3o est\ue1tica e dureza) extremamente positivas para a ind\ufastria moveleira, sendo complementado por seu bom desempenho perante equipamentos e m\ue1quinas, al\ue9m de receber bem produtos de acabamento. A cor da madeira e o seu desenho levaram os consumidores a mostrar \uf3tima aceita\ue7\ue3o do m\uf3vel fabricado com a esp\ue9cie. A madeira de Eucalyptus cloeziana, apesar de mostrar propriedades f\uedsicas e mec\ue2nicas com valores mais elevados que as do Eucalyptus grandis W.Hill ex Maiden, apresenta caracter\uedsticas desejadas para ind\ufastria moveleira. A sua colora\ue7\ue3o cinza oliva \ue9 uma op\ue7\ue3o para o consumidor. Alguns cuidados especiais com essa esp\ue9cie dever\ue3o ser tomados durante opera\ue7\uf5es com m\ue1quinas e equipamentos. Os valores da propriedade dureza apresentados por essa madeira a indicam para fabrica\ue7\ue3o de piso.This work was carried out at Universidade de Bras\uedlia at the Wood Products of Forestry Laboratory (IBAMA, Bras\uedlia, DF, Brazil). Two species of eucalypt wood ( Eucalyptus grandis W.Hill ex Maidenand Eucalyptus cloeziana ) were studied to supply the furniture making industry. The wood of Eucalyptus grandis W.Hill ex Maiden shows physical properties (density and retractibility) and mechanical properties (static bending and hardness) very suitable for the industry of wood furniture. Such characteristics are complemented by its excellent behaviour in machining and also good finishing with varnishes. The colour and patterns the wood bring to the consumers a good feeling as well as for the furnitures built with such a species. The wood of Eucalyptus cloeziana, in spite of its mechanical and physical properties higher than those of Eucalyptus grandis W.Hill ex Maiden, presents good characteristics for the manufacture of furniture. Its grey-olive colouring is consistent with a good choice and taste for the consumers. However, some precaution must be observed during the machining of the wood. This wood\u2019s hardness makes it suitable for parquetry

Combined measurements of Higgs boson couplings in proton- proton collisions at v s=13TeV

Combined measurements of the production and decay rates of the Higgs boson, as well as its couplings to vector bosons and fermions, are presented. The analysis uses the LHC proton-proton collision data set recorded with the CMS detector in 2016 at fb-1. The combination is based on analyses targeting the five main Higgs boson production mechanisms (gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson, or a top quark-antiquark pair) and the following decay modes: H, ZZ, WW, , bb, and . Searches for invisible Higgs boson decays are also considered. The best-fit ratio of the signal yield to the standard model expectation is measured to be =1.17 +/- 0.10, assuming a Higgs boson mass of 125.09. Additional results are given for various assumptions on the scaling behavior of the production and decay modes, including generic parametrizations based on ratios of cross sections and branching fractions or couplings. The results are compatible with the standard model predictions in all parametrizations considered. In addition, constraints are placed on various two Higgs doublet models.Peer reviewe

Many Labs 5:Testing pre-data collection peer review as an intervention to increase replicability

Replication studies in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If these studies use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data-collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replication studies from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) for which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection; only one of these studies had yielded a statistically significant effect (p < .05). Commenters suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these RP:P studies failed to replicate the original effects. We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replication studies. We administered the RP:P and revised protocols in multiple laboratories (median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5, range = 3?9; median total sample = 1,279.5, range = 276?3,512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, following the preregistered analysis plan, we found that the revised protocols produced effect sizes similar to those of the RP:P protocols (?r = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for the revised protocols (r = .05) was similar to that of the RP:P protocols (r = .04) and the original RP:P replications (r = .11), and smaller than that of the original studies (r = .37). Analysis of the cumulative evidence across the original studies and the corresponding three replication attempts provided very precise estimates of the 10 tested effects and indicated that their effect sizes (median r = .07, range = .00?.15) were 78% smaller, on average, than the original effect sizes (median r = .37, range = .19?.50)

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research

Constraints on the Higgs boson width from off-shell production and decay to Z-boson pairs

Constraints are presented on the total width of the recently discovered Higgs boson, GH, using its relative on-shell and off-shell production and decay rates to a pair of Z bosons, where one Z boson decays to an electron or muon pair, and the other to an electron, muon, or neutrino pair. The analysis is based on the data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011 and 2012, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 5.1fb-1 at a center-of-mass energy vs=7 TeV and 19.7fb-1at vs=8 TeV. A simultaneous maximum likelihood fit to the measured kinematic distributions near the resonance peak and above the Z-boson pair production threshold leads to an upper limit on the Higgs boson width of GH<22 MeV at a 95% confidence level, which is 5.4 times the expected value in the standard model at the measured mass of mH=125.6 GeV

Differential host utilisation by different life history stages of the fish ectoparasite Argulus foliaceus (Crustacea: Branchiura)

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