1,121 research outputs found

    Metodología de investigación de los yacimientos de pizarras para cubiertas

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    [Resumen] Se exponen .las bases metodológicas autores aplican a la investigación y de yacimientos de pizarras para cubiertas, tanto de su propia experiencia como de bibliografía disponible sobre el tema. Los factores que controlan la calidad de los yacimientos de dicha materia prima son de tres tipos: Litoestratigráficos, estructurales y metamórficos. Ellos se reflejan en una serie de parámetros que son los que habitua1ment e s e evalúan en e1 campo. La investigación utiliza técnicas geológicas básicas, adaptadas a las peculiaridades de la pizarra. Aquélla se lleva a cabo en tres fases. De cada una de las fases se presentan ejemplos. Se apuntan también algunas nuevas técnicas de investigación tomadas de la bibliografía, que podrían ser de aplicación en este campo.[Résumé] Il s'exposent les bases méthodologiques que 1es auteur s app1i quen t á 1I investigation et évaluation de gisements des ardoises pour couvertures, prisses autant de sa propre expérience que de la maigre bibliographie disponible sur le sujeto Les facteurs que controlent la qualité des gisements de la materie prime sont trois types: Litoestratiphiques, estructurales et metamórphiques. lIs se réfléchent sur une serp€ de parámetres que sont ceux que normalement s'evaluent sur le champ. L' investigation utilise les téc niques básiques, adaptées aux peculiarités de Celle-lá se mene á bien en trois phases. une des phases on presenten des exemples. On remarque aussi quelques nouvelles técniques 'investigation cherchées sur la bibliographie, qu'il pouvaient etre d'aplication sur ce champ

    Characterization of the bile and gall bladder microbiota of healthy pigs

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    MicrobiologyOpen published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Bile is a biological fluid synthesized in the liver, stored and concentrated in the gall bladder (interdigestive), and released into the duodenum after food intake. The microbial populations of different parts of mammal's gastrointestinal tract (stomach, small and large intestine) have been extensively studied; however, the characterization of bile microbiota had not been tackled until now. We have studied, by culture-dependent techniques and a 16S rRNA gene-based analysis, the microbiota present in the bile, gall bladder mucus, and biopsies of healthy sows. Also, we have identified the most abundant bacterial proteins in the bile samples. Our data show that the gall bladder ecosystem is mainly populated by members of the phyla Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes. Furthermore, fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) allowed us to visualize the presence of individual bacteria of different morphological types, in close association with either the epithelium or the erythrocytes, or inside the epithelial cells. Our work has generated new knowledge of bile microbial profiles and functions and might provide the basis for future studies on the relationship between bile microbiota, gut microbiota, and health. © 2014 The Authors.This work was supported by AGL2013-44761-P and AGL2013-41980-P projects from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain). Borja Sánchez was the recipient of a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contract from MINECO.Peer Reviewe

    Synthesis and Characterization of a New Cobalt(II) Complex with 2-(2-Pyridyl)Imino-N-(2-Thiazolin-2-yl)Thiazolidine (PyTT)

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    The compound aquanitrate-кObis[2-(2-pyridy)-imin-кN-N-(2-thiazin-кN-2-y)thiazidine]cbat() nitrate has been isolated and characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction, IR spectroscopy, UV-Vis-NIR diffuse reflectance and magnetic susceptibility measurements. The environment around the cobalt atom may be described as a distorted octahedral geometry with the ligand-metal-ligand bite angles varying between 84.07(8)° and 98.66(8)°.The metallic atom is coordinated to two thiazoline nitrogens [av. Co-N =2.067 Å], two imino nitrogens [av. Co-N =2.122 Å], one oxygen atom of the nitrate group monodentate [Co-O(1)= 2.249(2) Å] and the oxygen atom of the water molecule [Co-O(IW)= 2.105(2) Å]. Electronic UV-Vis-NIR spectral data and the calculated magnetic moment are indicative of octahedral Co(ll) complexes. In the same way as other PyTT complexes, the organic moiety preserves the imino-thiazolidine form detected in the structure of PyTT

    Histogenesis and cell differentiation in the retina of Thunnus thynnus: a morphological and immunohistochemical study

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    This study examines the anatomical development of the visual system of Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, during the first 15 days of life at histological level, with emphasis in the immunohistochemical characterization of different cell types. As an altricial fish species, the retina was not developed at hatching. The appearance of eye pigmentation and the transformation of the retina from an undifferentiated neuroblastic layer into a laminated structure occurred during the first two days of life. At 16 days after hatching (DAH), the ganglion cells were arranged in a single row in the central region of the retina and the outer segments of the photoreceptors were morphologically developed. Furthermore, at this age, all the retinal cell types were immunohistochemically characterized. The presence of ganglion cell axons was confirmed with the TUJ1 antibody and the existence of functional synapses in the plexiform layers with antibodies against SV2. Cone opsins were immunostained with antibodies against visinin and CERN-922 immunoreactive rods were also identified. Different subpopulations of amacrine cells were immunostained with antibodies against αTH and PV. Highly GS-immunoreactive Müller cells were also detected at this age. These observations suggested that the T. thynnus retina was fully functional at the end of the second week of life. Basic studies on early morphology of the visual system and larval behaviour are necessary to support applied research on larval rearing. Furthermore, they may have implications for understanding larval ecology in the wild.Versión del edito

    By-product recovery of Opuntia spp. peels: Betalainic and phenolic profiles and bioactive properties

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    [EN] Opuntia spp. are a tropical and subtropical plant that provides both edible green steams and fruits; however, the processing of this fruits results in the accumulation of enormous amount of by-products that can be a source of bioactive and pigmented compounds. Herein, three cactus pear from the species Opuntia focus-indica var. sanguigna (OS) and gialla (OG) and Opuntia engelmannii (OE) were fully characterized regarding their phenolic and betalain composition and correlated with their antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. The hydroethanolic extracts of OE gave the highest amount of phenolic compounds isorhamentin-O-(deoxyhexosyl-hexoside) and betacianins (betanin); however, no betaxanthins were identified in this sample. This sample also revealed the lowest EC50 values in all the antioxidant activity assays. Regarding antimicrobial activity, the hydroethanolic extracts of all species revealed to be more active than ampicillin. The pivotal objective of this work was to focus on exploring by-product biocompounds and possible outputs, thus, we could suggest the use of these natural colorants with intrinsic antioxidant and antimicrobial activity, which would grant industries to produce cleaner label products with functional benefits.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and FEDER under Programme PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013) and L. Barros contract. This work is funded by the European Structural and Investment Funds (FEEI) through the Regional Operational Program North 2020, within the scope of Project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-023289 (DeCodE) and ValorNatural (R). B. Melgar (No. 329930) also thanks CONACyT for his grant. The authors are grateful for a grant from the Serbian Ministry of Education, Sciences and Technological Development (no. 173032). The authors would also like to thank Dr. Carlos Aguiar for the botanical identification of these species.Melgar-Castañeda, B.; Dias, MI.; Ciric, A.; Sokovic, M.; Garcia-Castello, EM.; Rodríguez López, AD.; Barros, L.... (2017). By-product recovery of Opuntia spp. peels: Betalainic and phenolic profiles and bioactive properties. Industrial Crops and Products. 107:353-359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2017.06.011S35335910

    Severe Neurological Abnormalities in a Young Boy with Impaired Thyroid Hormone Sensitivity Due to a Novel Mutation in the MCT8 Gene

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    Monocarboxylate transporter 8 (MCT8) is an active and specific thyroid hormone transporter into neurons. MCT8 mutations cause an X-linked condition known as Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome and are characterized by impaired psychomotor development and typical abnormal thyroid function. We describe a 10-year-old boy with severe cognitive disability, axial hypotonia, spastic quadriplegia and sporadic dyskinetic episodes. He initially presented with thyroid dysfunction (high FT3, low rT3, low FT4 and normal TSH) and generalized retardation of the cerebral and cerebellar myelination in brain magnetic resonance imaging. The clinical and laboratory findings led to sequencing of the SLC16A2/MCT8 gene, which identified a novel missense mutation in exon 5. The study of peripheral markers of thyroid function suggests a paradoxical state of thyrotoxicosis in some peripheral tissues. Our patient had a typical clinical presentation at birth but because of the rarity of his disease his diagnosis was not made until the age of 7. The delay can also be explained by the omission of the free T3 assay in the first thyroid evaluation performed. This case therefore highlights the possible benefit of including the T3 assay in the study of patients with severe psychomotor disability of unknown etiology, thus eliminating extra costs for unnecessary complementary diagnostic tests.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Computer Vision and Metrics Learning for Hypothesis Testing: An Application of Q-Q Plot for Normality Test

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    This paper proposes a new procedure to construct test statistics for hypothesis testing by computer vision and metrics learning. The application highlighted in this paper is applying computer vision on Q-Q plot to construct a new test statistic for normality test. Traditionally, there are two families of approaches for verifying the probability distribution of a random variable. Researchers either subjectively assess the Q-Q plot or objectively use a mathematical formula, such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, to formally conduct a normality test. Graphical assessment by human beings is not rigorous whereas normality test statistics may not be accurate enough when the uniformly most powerful test does not exist. It may take tens of years for statistician to develop a new and more powerful test statistic. The first step of the proposed method is to apply computer vision techniques, such as pre-trained ResNet, to convert a Q-Q plot into a numerical vector. Next step is to apply metric learning to find an appropriate distance function between a Q-Q plot and the centroid of all Q-Q plots under the null hypothesis, which assumes the target variable is normally distributed. This distance metric is the new test statistic for normality test. Our experimentation results show that the machine-learning-based test statistics can outperform traditional normality tests in all cases, particularly when the sample size is small. This study provides convincing evidence that the proposed method could objectively create a powerful test statistic based on Q-Q plots and this method could be modified to construct many more powerful test statistics for other applications in the future

    Transcriptomic data on the transgenerational exposure of the keystone amphipod Gammarus locusta to simvastatin

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    The use of transcriptomics data brings new insights and works as a powerful tool to explore the molecular mode of action (MoA) of transgenerational inheritance effects of contaminants of emerging concern. Therefore, in this dataset, we present the transcriptomic data of the transgenerational effects of environmentally relevant simvastatin levels, one of the most prescribed human pharmaceuticals, in the keystone amphipod species Gammarus locusta. In summary, G. locusta juveniles were maintained under simvastatin exposure up to adulthood (exposed group - F0E) and the offspring of F0E were transferred to control water for the three subsequent generations (transgenerational group - F1T, F2T and F3T). To gain insights into the biological functions and canonical pathways transgenerationally disrupted by simvastatin, a G. locusta de novo transcriptome assembly was produced and the transcriptomic profiles of three individual G. locusta females, per group, over the four generations (F0 to F3) - solvent control groups (F0.C, F1.C, F2.C and F3.C), F0 320 ng/L simvastatin exposed group (F0.320E) and F1 to F3 320 transgenerational group (F1.320T; F2.320T and F3.320T) - were analyzed. Briefly, Illumina HiSeq™ 2500 platform was used to perform RNA sequencing, and due to the unavailability of G. locusta genome, the RNA-seq datasets were assembled de novo using Trinity and annotated with Trinotate software. After assembly and post-processing steps, 106093 transcripts with N50 of 2371 bp and mean sequence length of 1343.98 bp was produced. BUSCO analyses showed a transcriptome with gene completeness of 97.5 % Arthropoda library profile. The Bowtie2, RSEM and edgeR tools were used for the differential gene expression (DEGs) analyses that allowed the identification of a high quantity of genes differentially expressed in all generations. Finally, to identify the main metabolic pathways affected by the transgenerational effects of SIM across all generations, the DGEs genes were blasted onto KEGG pathways database using the KAAS webserver. The data furnished in this article allows a better molecular understanding of the transgenerational effects produced by simvastatin in the keystone amphipod G. locusta and has major implications for hazard and risk assessment of pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants. This article is related to the research article entitled “Transgenerational inheritance of chemical-induced signature: a case study with simvastatinThis article was developed under the Transobesogen project - Trans-phyletic obesogenic responses: from epigenetic modules to transgenerational environmental impacts (reference PTDC/CTA-AMB/31544/2017 - NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-031544), cofunded by Portugal 2020, the European Union through the ERDF and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT. This article was also supported by FCT through national funds (UIDB/04423/2020; UIDP/04423/2020), by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (CTM2017-84763-C3-2-R) and by the Galician Council of Culture, Education and Universities (ED431C2017/36), cofounded by ERDF. A PhD grant awarded to Susana Barros acknowledges the doctoral grant attributed by FCT with reference PD/BD/143090/2018S

    Transgenerational inheritance of chemical-induced signature: A case study with simvastatin

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    The hypothesis that exposure to certain environmental chemicals during early life stages may disrupt reproduction across multiple non-exposed generations has significant implications for understanding disease etiology and adverse outcomes. We demonstrate here reproductive multi and transgenerational effects, at environmentally relevant levels, of one of the most prescribed human pharmaceuticals, simvastatin, in a keystone species, the amphipod Gammarus locusta. The transgenerational findings has major implications for hazard and risk assessment of pharmaceuticals and other contaminants of emerging concern given that transgenerational effects of environmental chemicals are not addressed in current hazard and risk assessment schemes. Considering that the mevalonate synthesis, one of the key metabolic pathways targeted by simvastatin, is highly conserved among metazoans, these results may also shed light on the potential transgenerational effects of simvastatin on other animals, including humans.This research was funded by COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020, the European Union through the ERDF and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT (Transobesogen project – Trans-phyletic obesogenic responses: from epigenetic modules to transgenerational environmental impacts, reference: PTDC/CTA-AMB/31544/2017 – NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-031544). This research was also supported by the National Funds through FCT under the projects (UIDB/04423/2020; UIDP/04423/2020), by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (CTM2017-84763-C3-2-R), and by the Galician Council of Culture, Education and Universities (ED431C2017/36), cofounded by ERDF. A PhD grant awarded to Susana Barros (PD/BD/143090/2018) was funded by the FCTS
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