Clarificação e desodorização de óleo vegetal de babaçu (Orbinya speciosa) para fins alimentícios/Clarification and deodorization of babassu vegetable oil (Orbinya speciosa) for food purposes

Óleos e gorduras extraídos de plantas oleaginosas contém impurezas e quando destinados ao consumo humano se faz necessário melhorar sua aparência, cor e sabor para remoção de substâncias indesejáveis como fosfatídeos, ácidos graxos livres, substâncias coloidais e pigmentos. Quando o óleo bruto é destinado para fins comestíveis, o índice de acidez torna-se um parâmetro de qualidade do produto final por isso, precisa ser purificado. O refino de óleos vegetais consiste na degomagem ácida, neutralização da acidez do óleo degomado, clarificação e desodorização do óleo degomado e neutralizado. Na meso região do Alto Turi maranhense a produção de óleo de babaçu é obtida artesanalmente pelas quebradeiras de coco e não recebe nenhum processo de refino. Este trabalho teve por objetivo clarificar e desodorizar o óleo de babaçu utilizando um argilomineral e torna-lo apto para consumo humano. A matéria-prima foi coletada no mercado municipal de Zé Doca-MA e transportada para o Laboratório de Biocombustíveis do IFMA-Campus Zé Doca. Inicialmente o óleo estudado foi submetido à degomagem ácida, neutralização, clarificação, desodorização, filtração e caracterizado físico-químicamente em termos de índice de acidez, teor de ácidos graxos, umidade, densidade, índice de saponificação e teor de lipídeos. Os resultados obtidos revelaram que o óleo de babaçu apresentou propriedades intrínsecas que lhe habilitam mais para o processamento de produtos de limpeza e de higiene do que para fins alimentícios

Emergência de sementes de pimentão em função de diferentes substratos no Nordeste Brasileiro/ Emergency of pepper seeds due to different substrates in Northeast Brazil

O pimentão (Capsicum annuum L.) é uma hortaliça popular, principalmente cultivado e consumido em todo o território nacional brasileiro, sendo os principais produtores: Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Ceará, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo e Pernambuco. Portanto, o objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a emergência de sementes de pimentão em diferentes substratos. O experimento foi realizado em casa de vegetação de mudas   do Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sertão Pernambucano Campus Petrolina Zona Rural. Para obtenção das sementes foram compradas no comércio local da cidade de Petrolina-PE as sementes de Pimentão Verde Yolo Wonder. O delineamento foi inteiramente casualizado, com três tratamentos, totalizando 120 sementes para cada tratamento. Os tratamentos foram divididos em: (T1-substrato comercial 100%), (T2- 50% Substrato comercial e 50% areia lavada) e (T3- Vermiculita). As irrigações foram realizadas diariamente, mantendo sempre a umidade do substrato. As bandejas foram dispostas sobre uma bancada de madeira no viveiro por 15 dias. A contagem do número de sementes germinadas teve início aos sete dias e se estendeu até os 15 dias após a semeadura. Diante dos dados analisados pode-se perceber que não houve diferença significativa entre os tratamentos em relação à porcentagem de emergência de plântulas de pimentão. O tratamento que se obteve maior índice emergência de foi o T3- Vermiculita com 35% de emergência. conclui-se que os substratos analisados não interferiram da porcentagem de emergência, como também não interfere no Índice de velocidade de emergência de sementes de pimentão da variedade Pimentão Verde Yolo Wonder

Beekeeping in Brazil: A Bibliographic Review

Brazil presents favorable conditions for beekeeping, having a suitable climate; native flowering plants with great potential for the production of honey, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly; and bees adapted to our conditions, tolerant to the main apicultural diseases and highly productive. Through the meliponiculture, the conservation of mainly native forest areas is allowed; therefore, they are the best environments for the creation of native bees and production of by-products of the beehive with quality. The stingless bees are very sensitive to any disturbance due to anthropogenic action. A systematic bibliographical review was carried out in different electronic databases, through descriptors referring to beekeeping in Brazil. The identification of articles and their inclusion occurred between January 2018 and April 2018. The bibliographic research was conducted in the following electronic databases: (1) Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), (2) Public Library of Science (PLOS) Biology, and (3) ScienceDirect. In order to help in the process of standardization of bee products and traceability of the production chain, it was possible to draw a profile of the main bioactive substances of the beehive products of Brazil. It was also possible to relate the benefits of an adequate management of beekeeping and meliponiculture in Brazil

Synthetic Peptides Mimic gp75 from Paracoccidioides brasiliensis in the Diagnosis of Paracoccidioidomycosis

Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a systemic granulomatous disease, endemic in Latin America, caused by the thermal dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. Although some fungal antigens have already been characterized and used for serological diagnosis, cross-reactions have been frequently observed. Thus, the examination of fungal forms in clinical specimens or isolation of P. brasiliensis by culture is still the most frequent method for the diagnosis of this mycosis. In this study, a random peptide phage display library was used to select mimotopes of P. brasiliensis, which were employed as antigens in an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The protective monoclonal antibody against experimental PCM (anti-gp75) was used as molecular target to screen a phage display library. That approach led to a synthetic peptide named P2, which was synthesized and tested against PCM patients’ sera to check whether it was recognized. There was significant recognition of P2 by sera of untreated PCM patients when compared with normal human sera. Sera from treated PCM group, patients with other mycosis or co-infected with HIV had much lower recognition of P2 than untreated patient group. The test showed a sensitivity of 100 and 94.59% of specificity in relation to human sera control. These data indicate a potential use of P2 as diagnostic tool in PCM. Its application for serological diagnosis of PCM may contribute to the development and standardization of simpler, faster and highly reproducible immunodiagnostic tests at low cost

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost