In vitro reassembly of the malolactic fermentation pathway of Leuconostoc oenos (Oenococcus oeni)

The mechanism of metabolic energy generation by malolactic fermentation was studied with artificial membrane vesicles of Leuconostoc oenos (Oenococcus oeni), (Note that although L. oenos was recently reclassified as O. oeni [L. M. T. Dicks, F. Dellaglio, and M. D. Collins, Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 45:395-397, 1995], the old designation was kept in the present work,) Purified malolactic enzyme was entrapped in artificial membrane vesicles prepared from L. oenos cells able to transport L-malate. We show that the in vitro reconstituted system, including an electrogenic L-malate carrier and the decarboxylating malolactic enzyme, generated a proton motive force that was able to drive intravesicular accumulation of leucine

Combined multi-protocols qMRI for thigh muscle analysis: a preliminary study

Quantitative MRI (qMRI) has been shown to be crucial for assessing organ dysfunction in the body. Usually, in qMRI approaches, a few metrics are extracted to distinguish normal and abnormal tissues. In this study, we coupled four MRI protocols (mDIXON T1, T1 and T2 mapping and DTI) to obtain 34 complementary metrics including 20 shape metrics, 2 texture metrics and 12 water diffusivity metrics for thigh muscle analysis. These metrics were calculated on both thighs to detect a pathological difference between a pair of right and left muscles. The method is based on a dimension reduction method and a projection of shape and diffusivity metrics into a three-dimensional linear latent space, along with two texture metrics. 5 healthy individuals (10 thighs, each thigh 7 muscles, i.e., 4 exors and 3 extensors) were scanned to provide the reference scores. The developed pipeline was used to analyse the pair thighs of 4 patients in order to suggest a specific muscle therapy before total knee arthroplasty (TKA) individually for each of the 7 muscles. Preliminary results from the analysis of thigh muscle texture, shape and diffusivity showed that this qMRI protocol can help to suggest a targeted, patient-specific exercise plan to improve muscle recovery after TKA surgery. More healthy and pathological subjects are needed to confirm these encouraging results

Influence of the liquid phase content and presence of hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose on the properties of a calcium phosphate bone cement

Abstract in proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Colonização fúngica em próteses implantosuportadas: sulco vs. rebordo

Comunicação apresentada nas XXIII Jornadas Internacionais de Medicina Dentária do ISCSEM, 20-21 Março 2015, Egas Moniz, Caparica

Campaign “Caring of who takes care of us” or the profile of the respiratory health of Portuguese firefighters: evaluation of the respiratory impact in first responders (FR).

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Engineering the Controlled Assembly of Filamentous Injectisomes in E. coli K-12 for Protein Translocation into Mammalian Cells.

Bacterial pathogens containing type III protein secretion systems (T3SS) assemble large needle-like protein complexes in the bacterial envelope, called injectisomes, for translocation of protein effectors into host cells. The application of these molecular syringes for the injection of proteins into mammalian cells is hindered by their structural and genomic complexity, requiring multiple polypeptides encoded along with effectors in various transcriptional units (TUs) with intricate regulation. In this work, we have rationally designed the controlled expression of the filamentous injectisomes found in enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) in the nonpathogenic strain E. coli K-12. All structural components of EPEC injectisomes, encoded in a genomic island called the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE), were engineered in five TUs (eLEEs) excluding effectors, promoters and transcriptional regulators. These eLEEs were placed under the control of the IPTG-inducible promoter Ptac and integrated into specific chromosomal sites of E. coli K-12 using a marker-less strategy. The resulting strain, named synthetic injector E. coli (SIEC), assembles filamentous injectisomes similar to those in EPEC. SIEC injectisomes form pores in the host plasma membrane and are able to translocate T3-substrate proteins (e.g., translocated intimin receptor, Tir) into the cytoplasm of HeLa cells reproducing the phenotypes of intimate attachment and polymerization of actin-pedestals elicited by EPEC bacteria. Hence, SIEC strain allows the controlled expression of functional filamentous injectisomes for efficient translocation of proteins with T3S-signals into mammalian cells

Escala de perceção dos alunos sobre o feedback dos professores: construção e validação

O presente estudo procura testar as propriedades psicométricas de um questionário que avalia (a) perceção do aluno sobre o feedback do professor; a identificação escolar do aluno; as trajetórias escolares (factos e expectativas) e; a perceção do aluno sobre o seu envolvimento escolar. O questionário foi aplicado a 1089 alunos dos 6º, 7º, 9º e 10º anos de escolaridade (M=13.4, DP=1.7), sendo que 52% são do sexo feminino. A amostra é composta por alunos essencialmente de nacionalidade portuguesa (95.9%). A partir dos resultados da análise factorial e seguindo o racional teórico, chegou-se a uma estrutura composta por oito dimensões principais. O QFITE apresenta bons índices de consistência interna, com sete das oito principais dimensões a obterem valores entre .77 e .89. Assim, as análises psicométricas realizadas revelam valores satisfatórios, concluindo-se que o QFITE é um instrumento útil e adequado para avaliar a identificação escolar dos alunos, o envolvimento comportamental escolar, e as perceções dos alunos sobre o feedback do professor

Scale of student perceptions regarding their Behavioral Engagement in school: construction and validation

Este estudo descreve a construção e validação de uma escala que avalia a perceção dos alunos sobre o seu envolvimento comportamental escolar. Os questionários foram aplicados a 1089 alunos do 6 º, 7 º, 9 º e 10º anos de escolaridade (idade mediana = 13) em Portugal Continental, a partir dos quais foram extraídas duas subamostras aleatórias. Uma subamostra foi submetida a análise fatorial exploratória e a segunda, a uma análise fatorial confirmatória. Emergiram duas dimensões: envolvimento no trabalho acadêmico e participação na aula. A primeira escala revelou uma consistência interna aceitável, revelando-se útil e adequada para avaliar as percepções dos alunos sobre o seu envolvimento comportamental escolar. A segunda dimensão necessita de maior desenvolvimento em futuras investigações.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Microvawe pyrolysis of biomass: control of process parameters for high pyrolysis oil yields and enhanced oil quality

The oil yield and quality of pyrolysis oil from microwave heating of biomass was established by studying the behaviour of Larch in microwave processing. This is the first study in biomass pyrolysis to use a microwave processing technique and methodology that is fundamentally scalable, from which the basis of design for a continuous processing system can be derived to maximise oil yield and quality. It is shown systematically that sample size is a vital parameter that has been overlooked by previous work in this field. When sample size is controlled the liquid product yield is comparable to conventional pyrolysis, and can be achieved at an energy input of around 600 kWh/t. The quality of the liquid product is significantly improved compared to conventional pyrolysis processes, which results from the very rapid heating and quenching that can be achieved with microwave processing. The yields of Levoglucosan and phenolic compounds were found to be an order of magnitude higher in microwave pyrolysis when compared with conventional fast pyrolysis. Geometry is a key consideration for the development of a process at scale, and the opportunities and challenges for scale-up are discussed within this paper

Impact of today's media on university student's body image in Pakistan: a conservative, developing country's perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Living in a world greatly controlled by mass media makes it impossible to escape its pervading influence. As media in Pakistan has been free in the true sense of the word for only a few years, its impact on individuals is yet to be assessed. Our study aims to be the first to look at the effect media has on the body image of university students in a conservative, developing country like Pakistan. Also, we introduced the novel concept of body image dissatisfaction as being both negative and positive.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study was conducted among 7 private universities over a period of two weeks in the city of Karachi, Pakistan's largest and most populous city. Convenience sampling was used to select both male and female undergraduate students aged between 18 and 25 and a sample size of 783 was calculated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 784 final respondents, 376 (48%) were males and 408 (52%) females. The mean age of males was 20.77 (+/- 1.85) years and females was 20.38 (+/- 1.63) years. Out of these, 358 (45.6%) respondents had a positive BID (body image dissatisfaction) score while 426 (54.4%) had a negative BID score. Of the respondents who had positive BID scores, 93 (24.7%) were male and 265 (65.0%) were female. Of the respondents with a negative BID score, 283 (75.3%) were male and 143 (35.0%) were female. The results for BID vs. media exposure were similar in both high and low peer pressure groups. Low media exposure meant positive BID scores and vice versa in both groups (p < 0.0001) showing a statistically significant association between high media exposure and negative body image dissatisfaction. Finally, we looked at the association between gender and image dissatisfaction. Again a statistically significant association was found between positive body image dissatisfaction and female gender and negative body image dissatisfaction and male gender (p < 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study confirmed the tendency of the media to have an overall negative effect on individuals' body image. A striking feature of our study, however, was the finding that negative body image dissatisfaction was found to be more prevalent in males as compared to females. Likewise, positive BID scores were more prevalent amongst females.</p